Diario de thebark

It has been 100 years since the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, and a threat is on the horizon in the form of an amendment tacked on to HR 4239, the SECURE American Energy Act, that would exempt oil and energy producers from prosecution under the Migratory Act for failing to prevent the killing of birds by reason of energy equipment or infrastructure. Read more at https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/dont-mess-with-the-birds?google_editors_picks=true

The author of the amendment is Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney. A vote on the full energy bill including the amendment will be up soon.

What can you say. It's complicated. I like to have them around, making bare unused lots more interesting by their presence, such as the vacant lots between I-27 and Ave. A or those near the Walmart at 6th & R. Or colonies in the Canyon Lakes parks.

Back about 2011 when I rode a bike to Walmart and had to yield to a prairie dog caught in the street at Ave. R and 10th between a car and me, I enjoyed the moment. Glad the little feller got home safe that day.

To me, the Canyon Lakes colonies look more like a real prairie dog town than the weedy desolate patch enclosed in walls that the city of Lubbock miscalls "Prairie Dog Town."

That prairie dogs are among the rodents that carry plague doesn't bother me at all. https://youtu.be/5nsm9cgHmvo [Reminds me of the way a TTUHSC prof was pilloried for transporting plague bacillus on a commercial airplane. Ha. Want bubonic plague? Buy rat traps and go trap rodents in eastern NM. The plague bacillus is always with us, not far away. Live with it, as we've been doing all along. Last I heard the medical school prof was out of prison and working at the University of Riyadh; hopefully they appreciated him there.]

Of course I am not among those who like to ride horses at the Canyon Lakes parks, and I don't have P-dogs trying to colonize my yard. Or maybe not. Something dug a burrow under some cholla cactus several years ago and left droppings, but I think that was a rabbit there, until the cats or the fox caught it.

The poisoning bothers me, just as lethal injection of condemned humans does. Better to be shot or killed by predators in my opinion, for humans or prairie dogs. And if Lubbock urbanites are disturbed by hunters firing .22s, then they can just put up with the prairie dogs.

And I sure as hell don't approve of calling killing "removal," as here: http://www.lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2016-07-21/danger-sign-east-lubbock-park-prompted-prairie-dog-removal Too easy to use euphemisms to disguise facts and make uncomfortable situations more palatable, no? Easy road to lie to oneself, no?

The recent history is this. Back after the year 2000, prairie dogs had colonized the farmland the city was spraying treated sewage water on, and there was panic about nitrates contaminating the water table because they could run down prairie dog burrows instead of percolating through the full depth of the soil. The Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission blamed prairie dogs for the subterranean nitrate levels. The city decided extermination was the way to go. [So let's get this straight; there was worry about nitrates contaminating the water table, but it's okay to use poison?] https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2002-10-18/106246/

Enter Lynda Watson, prairie dog removal specialist. And that is removal as in capture and relocate, not removal as in kill or exterminate. Lynda Watson has been one of the most famous Lubbock-area residents for over 15 years. For more on the fascinating Ms. Watson -- they really ought to make a movie out of her life -- see

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Texas-prairie-dog-catcher-enjoys-fame-2099143.php

https://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0813/p03s01-usgn.html

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/git-along/

Texas Country Reporter at https://youtu.be/UcTjGcm7-7A

and in a 2017 update, http://marfapublicradio.org/blog/nature-notes/conserving-a-keystone-species-lynda-watson-is-the-prairie-dog-lady-of-west-texas/

Trouble is, capturing prairie dogs is work-intensive, doesn't pay much, only a sample of a big colony can be saved, and there is always the question of what to do with P-dogs captured. And who volunteers to live the hard life of Ms. Watson? How do YOU feel about sticking your arm down a prairie dog hole? And keep in mind you need to be able to feel the p-dogs so no gloves. A job for would-be catfish noodlers, no?

Is there a humane solution? Other than spraying prairie dog burrows with birth control hormones, I don't think there is. But for the sake of honesty, let's do away with the euphemisms.

One of the nicest, friendliest cats of the 10 or so that I feed -- defensively, on the theory that a fat and unhungry cat is less of a threat to birds -- was a pretty siamese tom. I found him yesterday hurt with what looked like a bite to his mouth. I put out some warm milk and when I checked a bit later he was gone. I thought about it and decided he had gone up to a dog in his friendly way to sniff and gotten bitten. This evening after 10 p.m. I went out and saw a medium size fox in my yard across the street where I keep a gallon pan of water for birds, cats, whatever wants a drink.

Mystery solved, and I haven't seen the siamese since. Darn. I liked that cat.

I live in the house I came to right after I was born. Grew up here. And never back when this was a much smaller town were there foxes around, or possums or wild rabbits or prairie dogs. There WERE chickens, pheasants and goats, but that was because we had them in the back yard; legal then. The geese didn't work, because when I went out they chased me to the point that I was afraid to go out, and my mother and grandfather quickly traded them away. The chaos that ensued over attempts to pluck the geese for feathers for pillows could have been a factor too. But those are other stories.

About seven years ago I was here and awakened by a crash coming from the kitchen after 2 a.m. I got up, went to the kitchen, and saw where some plastic storage boxes had fallen from the lowest shelf of the cupboard. I looked where they had fallen from and saw a naked tail hanging down, as though from a giant rat. I looked further and found beady eyes glaring back at me in an unfriendly way. Positive ID -- possum. I reached for it and it hissed and exposed chompers that a baby tyrannosaur would be proud of. What happened to playing dead? I went for gloves and came back and grabbed but the critter was too fast for me, and jumped out of the cupboard, down to the counter, then to the floor, and into the pantry. I cornered the possum on a shelf at the back of the pantry where from the droppings it looked liked it had been hanging out for days. Finally caught it and turned it loose at the back where there are piles of junk. Never saw it again but did see others for a while.

On a bike ride on Broadway at Mackenzie Park at roughly the same year I saw a fawn that had been struck by a vehicle and killed. Saw a coyote running across Broadway. So what's going on? Why the wildlife moving into town in recent years?

Has to be partly drought and meager pickings out in the country, but is that the only reason?

Wrote this on Facebook when early voting started. Garrett Hardin and his essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" have been a strong influence on me, hopefully for the better.

Where does your space end and mine begin? What do we do about companies dumping pollutants into spaces held by all of us in common, like our air and surface water and ground water?

Is there a limit to the right of companies to sell products that unreasonably threaten our lives and safety? Is there to be no limit to corporate freedom but only to OUR freedom to be safe from unnecessarily dangerous products and contaminants?

Do private interests have a right to render our public spaces and resources as an "Exhibit A" to the tragedy of the commons?

Conservatives and most libertarians think we individuals have to bear the dangers and risks and lump it if we don't like it, that freedom runs only in the perspective of profit, that little people should be denied the use of government and regulation in self defense.

I don't know about you but I am mad as hell at what this conservative wave is doing to our country and its people, at the crippling of the EPA and erosion of public lands at the Department of the Interior, and at the McCarthyism that paints anyone who advocates in the public interest as a "socialist."

What we can so easily and privately do RIGHT NOW is VOTE.... [Reference to party deleted. I'm trying to keep this from being too partisan.]

https://www.revealnews.org/article/egged-on-by-industry-lobbyists-interior-dept-weakens-bird-protections/