Guest Opinion by Kip Hansen – 30 August 2020
Earlier this year, I wrote about the Migratory Bird Treaty Act [MBTA] and the efforts of the current administration in the United States to clarify federal law to ensure that it was no longer used by non-elected government bureaucrats to criminalize the accidental or incidental killing of migratory birds.
Once the new rule was issued, various interest groups sued to have the new rule vacated. That case has now been decided – based on two very important legal standards: fiction and opinion.
Now, it is very important to realize that it is the norm, not the exception, that cases like these are decided based on the opinion of the judge (or judges) handling the specific case and on all the opinions (decisions) issued by other judges in similar or related cases of the past.
The oddest thing is that this case seems to have been decided, in part, based on the opinion of a fictional character, Atticus Finch, one of the protagonists of Harper Lee’s magnificent novel, To Kill a Mocking Bird.
Here I quote the first paragraph of the opinion (aka Case 1:18-cv-04596-VEC Document 89) written by the Honorable Valerie Caproni, United States District Judge, Southern District of New York, who was appointed in 2013 by then-President Obama.
“It is not only a sin to kill a mockingbird, it is also a crime.1 That has been the letter of the law for the past century. But if the Department of the Interior has its way, many mockingbirds and other migratory birds that delight people and support ecosystems throughout the country will be killed without legal consequence.”
Footnote: “1 See Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird 103 (Harper Perennial 2002) (1960) (“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”); 50 C.F.R. § 10.13(c)(1) (2013) (listing “MOCKINGBIRD, Bahama, Mimus gundlachii” as a species protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act).”
Thus, the opinion (which just means a judicial decision in a case) is based on two fictions:
- The expressed opinion of the fictional character, Atticus Finch. I’m a bit leery of using Atticus as a legal precedent, but at least he was a [fictional] lawyer.
- The fiction that “That [it is a federal crime to kill a mockingbird] has been the letter of the law for the past century.” The Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior never even considered taking legal action against accidental and incidental “taking” (killing, trapping, etc) until the mid-1970s [ source ] when anti-war and anti-draft activists jumped on the Rachel Carson-inspired environmental-activism wagon.
These two fictions sum up the entire decision of Judge Caproni, though she spends 31 pages of discussion of past opinions of other judges. Through the simple process of agreeing with those prior opinions which match her bias and dismissing those prior opinions with which she does not agree, she supports herself in her biased, activist position that results in absurd legal situations if taken as literally as she claims we must.
As much as she denies that this is so, she gives examples in her opinion clearly demonstrating some of these absurd situations. Take for instance this section:
“Second, Interior’s application of constitutional avoidance relies on an unpersuasive predicate application of the void-for-vagueness doctrine. That doctrine “requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357 (1983). Although Section 2 is broad, it is not vague. A law is vague if “it is unclear as to what fact must be proved.” F.C.C. v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 567 U.S. 239, 253 (2012). Due process requires that “laws which regulate persons or entities must give fair notice of conduct that is forbidden or required.” Id. Far from statutory language that criminalizes “contemptuously” treating the flag,18 “obscene, indecent, or profane language,”19 or “conduct that presents a serious risk of physical injury to another,”20 Section 2 [of the MBTA] gives persons fair notice of what exactly is criminal—it is unlawful to kill migratory birds by any means. See United States v. Smith, 29 F.3d 270, 273 (7th Cir. 1994) (“We are quite confident that ordinary people can understand [Section 2]’s clear and precise language. That language tells ‘ordinary people’ this: if you possess any part of a migratory bird, you break the law.”)” [emphasis added – kh]
Here is the full text of the statute:
“Unless and except as permitted by regulations made as hereinafter provided in this subchapter, it shall be unlawful at any time, by any means or in any manner, to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture, or kill, possess, offer for sale, sell, offer to barter, barter, offer to purchase, purchase, deliver for shipment, ship, export, import, cause to be shipped, exported, or imported, deliver for transportation, transport or cause to be transported, carry or cause to be carried, or receive for shipment, transportation, carriage, or export, any migratory bird, any part, nest, or egg of any such bird, or any product, whether or not manufactured, which consists, or is composed in whole or part, of any such bird or any part, nest, or egg thereof, included in the terms of the conventions between the United States and Great Britain for the protection of migratory birds concluded August 16, 1916 (39 Stat. 1702), the United States and the United Mexican States for the protection of migratory birds and game mammals concluded February 7, 1936, the United States and the Government of Japan for the protection of migratory birds and birds in danger of extinction, and their environment concluded March 4, 1972, and the convention between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for the conservation of migratory birds and their environments concluded November 19, 1976.
Dear reader, I ask you, having read the law, is it your understanding, as an ordinary person, that if you pick up a robin’s feather from the lawn in your backyard, you have committed a federal crime? Of course not, neither do you consider yourself a criminal if you pick up a robin’s egg that has fallen from a nest or one that has failed to hatch and has been abandoned by Mother Robin. Yet, Judge Caproni insists that her opinion is true and must be applied not only to killing but the other prohibited actions as well. She insists that “ordinary people” would realize that they are committing a criminal act by collecting and keeping even the broken fragments of a robin’s egg, left after Baby Robin has hatched and flown away.
Have you ever picked up a pretty feather from the roadside and taken it home to delight a child? Judge Caproni says this is a federal crime! … and that “any ordinary person” would realize they are breaking the law. Not just a “jaywalking-type law”, but a federal law for which there are prescribed fines and terms of imprisonment.
By the way, as Judge Caproni interprets the law, you are also guilty of a federal offense “punishable by a fine of up to $15,000 and imprisonment for up to six months” if you chase greedy birds (say, grackles or cowbirds) away from your bird feeder or out of your vegetable garden – that is an unlawful “pursuing”. Collect old bird nests? Federal offense.
Do you have glass windows in your home? If so, you are at risk of committing the federal crime of killing a migratory bird by the act of failing to prevent said bird from killing itself by flying into your plate glass window or your sliding glass door. You may have already done so and failed to report yourself to federal authorities.
I admit, at risk of imprisonment and fine, that I have, in the past, committed this crime several times in various homes that I have owned. While I lamented the death of the birds, I did not think that these deaths made me a criminal, even though bird strikes are somewhat preventable. Bird strikes can be reduced by placing various types of stickers on one’s windows.
If you are an ornithologist , you have probably committed lots of federal offenses by pursuing, capturing or attempting to take various birds, their eggs, their feathers and nests unless you have a specific FWS permit to do so.
Wait a minute, wait a minute…don’t hunters legally kill lots of ducks and other migratory waterfowl each year? Yes, they do. How many? As of 2010, “Close to twenty million ducks and geese are shot each year by hunters in the United States and Canada” [ source ]. Not only do the federal and state governments allow this slaughter, they literally sell the privilege to kill these migratory birds to hunters in the form of Federal Duck Stamps and state-based hunting licenses.
You see, “FWS and DOJ have been careful to bring enforcement actions only in limited circumstances, such as when an entity has been repeatedly warned of the take, and has refused to take available measures to minimize it, or when large numbers of birds are killed.” [source: the Caproni opinion].
But, hey, come on, we just read Judge Caproni saying that legal void-for-vagueness “doctrine requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” Yet she justifies the absurdity of the practical result of her opinion that “all killing of migratory birds is a crime” with the fact that FWS/DOI [Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior] arbitrarily enforce the law, discriminating between offenders – supposedly obviating the absurdities. She assured us that they would not arrest my eight-year old neighbor for shooting a robin with his new BB-gun or his parents for killing a migratory duck without permit by hitting it while driving on the Interstate. [ Note: If that seems to be hard to understand, it is because it is blatantly contradictory.]
This fight has been going on for a very long time – with legal opinions in various cases falling on both sides of the debate – “Any Killing Is A Crime” and “Only Intentional Killing Is A Crime” – and several versions in the middle ground. There is a very good discussion on the issue in the .pdf here. For further review, a search of scholarly articles on the topic is nearly endless – over 38,000 and counting.
In truth, the original purpose of the Migratory Bird Treaty(ies) was expressed in this: “The 1916 Convention proclaimed the purpose of “saving from indiscriminate slaughter and of insuring the preservation of such migratory birds as are either useful to man or are harmless.” The original statute [MBTA] covers a lot of ground, most of it commercial in nature – “possess, offer for sale, sell, offer to barter, barter, offer to purchase, purchase, deliver for shipment, ship, export, import, cause to be shipped, exported, or imported, deliver for transportation, transport or cause to be transported, carry or cause to be carried, or receive for shipment, transportation, carriage, or export.”
This most current decision, which will surely be appealed by the Department of the Interior, is a prime example of continued “judicial activism” intended to stretch the breadth of the law from simply covering “indiscriminate slaughter” (in its time, this meant massive market hunting and hunting birds to fulfill the demands for fancy bird feathers, mostly for women’s hats, and bird eggs for collectors) and spread it out to criminalize even the accidental and incidental — “by any means or in any manner”— actions, each action itself perfectly legal and expected, in many cases unavoidable, that could possibly be construed as or result in something akin to “pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture, or kill” any, even a single, migratory bird.
My copy of Black’s Law Dictionary defines judicial activism as a “philosophy of judicial decision-making whereby judges allow their personal views about public policy, among other factors, to guide their decisions.”
And here we see the value of “forum shopping”. In general forum shopping involves filing a law suit in a specific district court chosen for the likelihood that the case will be assigned to a judge favorable to the plaintiff’s cause. For environmental-issue cases being appealed, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is by far a favorite. “Judge shopping” is a little trickier but can be accomplished (see, for instance, here). The plaintiffs need to get their cases assigned to sympathetic judges because these cases are invariably decided based on the bias and opinions of the judge selected.
The cases in this instance were filed by various parties: National Audubon Society; American Bird Conservancy; Center for Biological Diversity; Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Wildlife Federation and various states: State of New York; State of California; State of Illinois; State of Maryland; Commonwealth of Massachusetts; State of New Jersey; State of New Mexico; State of Oregon. The special interest groups have very deep pockets (National Audubon alone had annual receipts of over $83,000,000 in the latest year reported) and the states are spending taxpayer dollars. They know full well that the decision will be appealed, but hope that the November elections will bring a change in the political party that controls the Presidency (who heads the executive branch of government and thus DOI and FWS), or at least Congress.
A bill was proposed in Congress in January 2020 on this topic: HR 5552, “Migratory Bird Protection Act of 2020”. It was assigned to the House Committee on Natural Resources on 15 January 2020 and nothing has happened with it since. It states (in part): “INCIDENTAL TAKE.—The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (16 U.S.C. 703 et seq.) is amended in section 2(a), by inserting “incidentally take,” before “attempt to take,” ” and “”IN GENERAL. — It shall be a violation of this Act for any person to incidentally take a migratory bird as a result of a commercial activity…“. There is a lot more to the bill, but in my opinion, it fails utterly to exempt ordinary citizens from criminal prosecution for the accidental, unavoidable, incidental killing of migratory birds in the normal course of living their lives. Thus, it simply increases the risks of arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. Ordinary citizens engaged in any commercial activity (anything that is intended to make money) will remain uncertain as to exactly what they must do to protect themselves from arbitrary FWS enforcement and their snitches.
According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, the vast majority of annual bird deaths (as of 2017) are caused by: (these are median estimates)
Cats: 2,400,000,000 (yes, that median estimate is well over two billion).
Collision – Building Glass: 599,000,000
Collision – Vehicles: 214,500,000
Poison: 72,000,000 (by various chemicals)
Collisions – Electrical lines: 25,500,000
Electrocutions: 5,600,000
All the other usual suspects combined – oil pits, wind turbines, solar power plants – amount to less than one million. FWS cheats a bit in its reporting by combining all but Cats and Vehicle Collisions under one heading “Industry” thus adding up to 709,684,000. Whereas the top three categories, none of which we can do much about in any case — Cats, Buildings, and Vehicles –come to a whopping 3,214,000,000. There doesn’t seem to be any categories for what ordinary citizens would consider “industry” – factories, manufacturing, normal power plants, the building industry (not the product, but the activity), airlines and all else. See here for my response to the major threat.
Rational citizens must wait and see — hoping for some sanity on the subject from the appeals courts.
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Author’s Comment:
I’d like to thank reader Michael Brienesse for bringing the new decision to my attention (via the WUWT Tip line).
Much of what is wrong with many of our reader’s nations is the result of the usurping of legislative authority – law making authority — which is intended to be in the hands of representatives elected by the people — by government bureaucracies and departments of justice (your national government may use a different name). At the European Union level, laws and regulations are passed and enforced almost entirely by non-elected, non-representative bureaucrats.
In far too many cases, these bureaucracies and judgeships are filled with what Bari Weiss recently characterized as “those living in a distant galaxy, one whose concerns are profoundly removed from the lives of most people. This is a galaxy in which, to choose just a few recent examples, the Soviet space program is lauded for its “diversity”; the doxxing of teenagers in the name of justice is condoned; and the worst caste systems in human history includes the United States alongside Nazi Germany” and I will add this bit: “and in which the accidental killing of a bird can be prosecuted as a federal criminal offense, or not, quite arbitrarily.”
Criminalizing unavoidable results of legal actions and activities is, quite bluntly, insane.
Thank you for reading.
Read more, read widely, read critically.
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Why not just turn Judge Caproni in for violating this very law, bankrupt her fighting to clear her name. THAT is how you bring these leftist morons to heel.
Hmmm…. a ‘migratory’ blue bird or robin carcass ‘found’ in the grill of judge Caproni’s car, photographed in situ, and then a complaint filed with Fish and Wildlife might be a good start. Could her car be confiscated for ‘evidence’ of her heinous crimes, one wonders?
Apparently all it takes is a feather. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-10-27-0010270199-story.html
2hotel9 ==> Yes, a bizarre misapplication of federal powers — prosecution of the innocent.
Complaint filed?
How are you going to file a complaint against a Federal Judge? You’re just a CITIZEN*.
You don’t have any standing a court in this country is obliged to listen to. (reference the 11th Amendment {the one you never hear about in medias} which rendered the “Bill Of Rights” a dead letter.)
* Make no mistake, it sickens me that this is the way of things. Everyone of America’s troubles could be cured in an instant if the 11th Amendment were repealed. Suddenly we would have rights. Suddenly elected officials would skin in the game and practice public corruption at their own peril.
And yet nobody talks about it.
The judge would seem to be correct in her interpretation of the law as written. Intent is not required.
It is for the legislature to remedy the situation, not the courts. That the existing law grants immense arbitrary power to the state is not in doubt.
Boff ==> Yes, intent is not required, but the law was written to prevent massive market hunting and hunting for the feather and egg collecting trade.
Thank you so much! This injustice is a particular pet peeve and it’s great to see a lengthy and smart article about the ridiculous overreach and misinformation. Too many wildlife “experts” like to claim “why, it’s been illegal to pick up a blue jay feather since 1916”, while the fact is particular species are a list that changes constantly. Every few years there is a new list to which that treaty applies. And in order to determine, one would need to know which list was in effect at the time the alleged “crime” was committed – kind of like determining US citizenship, which also is defined only by continually changing regulation, and not by the Constitution or even Congressional Bill.
So it’s not “just any bird”, but the birds covered are defined by constantly changing regulation that lists the specific birds, and omits others. I have links to the actual current lists but not sure if the filters will allow them,
Tina ==> Thank you for joining us.
Readers: The list is found at
https://www.fws.gov/birds/management/managed-species/migratory-bird-treaty-act-protected-species.php
So does that mean you pick up a feather one year and it would be perfectly fine but having it in a subsequent year it is illegal?
LdB ==> Enforcement is almost entirely arbitrary.. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-10-27-0010270199-story.html — with the Caproni decision, FWS can now arbitrarily (and in a discriminatory manner) decide who to fine, who to warn, and whose home to raid for evidence.
Or by a cat-hater.
There’s no bird on bird numbers in the article. I’ve never seen a cat take a bird in any garden I’ve owned whereas I can think of three raptor on small bird deaths.
When asked by Queen Victoria how to get rid of the sparrows in the Crystal Palace the then PM, the Duke of Wellington’s reply was succinct and to the point, “Sparrow-hawks, Ma,am”. He was right, by the time the Crystal Palace was opened by the Queen, they had all gone. Not Cats but raptors.
The breeding pair of hawks in my neighborhood have significantly reduced the grey squirrel population in just a couple of years. It seems that the bird population is similarly impacted, despite keeping a bird bath to attract them.
Ben ==> Avivores, are by definition,bird eaters. Avivorous birds, mostly raptors, do kill a lot of birds, but it is not quantifiable. Many birds, as well as squirrels and a lot of other seemingly harmless mammals, eat nestling birds. Even some insects eat nestling birds. Some preying mantises catch and eat hummingbirds.
Cats eat nestlings like little kids eat Gummy Bears. In just a few minutes, a cat can gobble up all the nestlings in a nest. This is he major threat of domestic cats on birds who nest in locations to which cats can gain access. The piping of nestlings drives domestic cats to a frenzy of searching a way to get to them.
FWS includes cats because they are considered an anthropogenic threat — they are human pets and/or invasive species.
Same effect a hearing aid dropped on the floor has, a very high chirpy whistle drives cats to go right for them.
Kip, Corvids in general and Magpies in particular raid birds nests for eggs and Young. American Grey Squirrels are also nest raiders in the UK. Martens which are being encouraged to return in various parts of the UK are partial to eggs and chicks, as are rats.
Not having data, and it’s all guesses anyway, to compare natural to Anthropogenic depredation then number are just numbers. Humans must have eliminated natural predators from the wild as they have in the UK
Ben ==> This is a values issue. Do you highly value songbirds? Are songbirds more valuable than the :freedom” of your neighbors cats toroam your yard and kill songbirds (and rabbits, and chipmunks, etc) ?
We don;t let your neighbors dog run free. We don’t allow your neighbors pet goat to run free (and eat other salespeople roses).
Does the federal law apply to Native Americans , who sometimes display with feathered war bonnets on ceremonial occasions :
https://native-american-indian-facts.com/Native-American-Indian-Culture-Facts/Native-American-Indian-Headdress-Facts.html
Or do they constitute a separate nation that has not ratified the conventions agreed by US Congress with , apparently, Gt Britain , Japan Mexico and the former USSR and are therefore exempt from prosecution?
Mike ==> Native American nations are exempted from the Endangered Species Act in regards to eagle feathers. Other feathers, I don’;t know.
This problem is intricate and complex, but I think I see where the trouble began.
Here it is:
MBTA – Aledged to mean the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
In reality, MBTA is the Metropolitan Boston Transit Authority.
Apparently, the Feds confused the transit needs of migratory birds with the transit needs of the greater Boston metro area. Chaos was the inevitable result. Your tax dollars at work.
Tony ==> Kingston Trio — https://youtu.be/S7Jw_v3F_Q0
Fran wrote that birds in the locale massively reduced when a ‘flock’ of crows nested in nearby trees.
Not a surprise as the proper collective noun for crows is “murder” (as in a ‘murder of crows’.)
BTW , IAAL, the collective noun for us (in some quarters) is ‘a grasp of lawyers’.
I see my comment is in moderation. Not sure if it was because I used the word ‘murd*r’ or because I user the dreaded ‘lawy*er’.
The later is certainly worse than the former (I’m joking, mostly)
OK, but is the taking of a feather from the ground a “Hate Crime”? This would make the act more heinous still. For example, I “hate” grackles.
I will never understand a legal system that makes crimes out of ordinary acts that do no harm to anyone. This is socialism at its best – try to control everything that anyone can do and then only apply punishments when you don’t like the person or group.
Nor do I understand why a crime is worse if committed against people of different eye, hair, and/or skin color. A crime against a person is a crime with a prescribed penalty. How can it be negated or worsened based on a person’s appearance? These racist laws and beliefs need to be tossed out with the other nonsense laws.
So, I guess we must beware the Jubjub bird, never mind shunning the frumious Bandersnatch!
Would this, on our local scale, imply that if we have a birdstrike departing from Cologne, I should divert to have maintenance remove the spot at Düsseldorf or risk to be jailed at Heathrow for illegally importing parts of a migratory bird ?
This said, we genuinely hate birdstrikes and try, by all means to avoid harming our collegues in fate… Never mind missing the slot, we always watch for flocks before setting takeoff power and during the climb. Birds at high speed can be very dangerous indeed.
That spiral figure on the spinner of the fans serves also the purpose to scare them away as it’s supposedly reminiscent of the eye of a prey bird.
Almost all airports deploy bird repelling tactics. Gas (blank) canons, electronic noises, even trained falcons…
The problem is that solar panels are pretty much mixed signals. Theories vary. Some claim they repel birds, others exactly the opposite, suggest that birds are attracted by the unusual brilliance or confuse them with water bodies.
When windows are reflective, as when backed by dark shades, birds attack their images.
Oh, yea! Spent quite a bit of time being entertained by this effect. Also, they will attack their reflection in outside vehicle mirrors and dark tinted windows.
I felt sorry for the little goldfinch so attacking himself that he might not have enough energy left to mate and reproduce.
Perhaps he was attacking his reflection because no fem would mate with him?
Caproni ==> capricious, or worse depending on language.
Damn nuisance mocking birds used to wake me up at 3 AM living in California. Were hard to hit with a pellet gun by street light. A shot gun was not appropriate to the neighborhood.
In the UK, cats are considered to be wild animals, unlike dogs. This is underscored by law, in that a driver is required to report the killing of a dog to the police & a dog owner is responsible for paying for repairing any consequential damage to the car. Killing a cat whilst driving is just unfortunate. The cat owner does not pay if the driver swerves to avoid the cat & then crashes. Over the years, two of my cats have been killed by motor vehicles. My latest neutered tomcat is the most well fed & affectionate home body I’ve experienced & bloody useless at catching rodents. We have had to purchase this A24 from. https://goodnature.co/
As we live in the Chilterns , our skies are patrolled by red kites. https://www.chilternsaonb.org/about-chilterns/red-kites.html They like dead, non poisoned rats.
“It shall be a violation of this Act for any person to incidentally take a migratory bird as a result of a commercial activity…“
Um…wouldn’t that make wind cuisinarts…er…windmills…problematic? As well as solar plants that use the mirrors? Don’t those “take” massive amounts of migratory birds and aren’t they commercial activities?
Probably why the law didn’t go anywhere.
Sailorcurt ==> They will sell indulgences to wind power companies which will simply increase the cost of electricity.
The bill didn’t go anywhere because it was only filed as an anti-Trump measure — and further it doesn’t resolve any of the issues regarding arbitrary enforcement and discriminatory enforcement. It makes the legal muddle even worse —
I can’t remember who said it, but the whole purpose of socialism is to have so many laws that it is impossible for an average person to go through a day without breaking one of them.
This then gives the government power over individuals. As long as you don’t create any problems for the commissars, they will ignore the fact that you are breaking laws. Become a problem for them, and you will go to jail.
PS: The bigger the bribes that you pay, the more blind the commissars get.
Just asking for a friend. If my friend whacked several mockingbirds that were destroying his tomato garden and he had been giving homegrown vine ripened tomatoes to several of his elderly and disabled neighbors and friends and he got caught by the feds for criminal offence of whacking a mockingbird, could his friends and neighbors also be charged in this ongoing crime? Would RICO apply?
Again, I’m just asking for a friend.
Wow! There’s a black SUV parked in front of my house. Should I call my friend and tell him to flush his pellet gun down the toilet?
eyesonu ==> Ah ha! One of your neighbors is a big supported of National Audubon!
eyesonu ==> “Whacking” mockingbirds is a federal crime. They are Migratory Birds and protected under the MBTA.
If one of your neighbors is a “True Bird Lover” they might report you to FWS and then you would be in trouble — MAYBE. The FWS arbitrarily enforces the MBTA — so if you are 1) a Trump Supporter you’re Ok this year (but watch out if the election goes the other way). 2) If you work for the petroleum industry, you’re at high risk.
FWS relies on snitches to report on “bad industries” and “bad people”.
Is it legal to take pictures of birds? to print or display them? to destroy or delete the photos??
Andy ==> So far, so good….just keep your hands off the feathers….
What about the (bird) children?
Isn’t it about time that it was declared mandatory that cats wear booties when outdoors to stop them killing?
A repeat offender could wear lead-lined footwear to humanely stop their ravages.
The owner’s responsibility means they would be liable if their cat was found outdoors without these life-saving booties.
I repeat – what about the children?
jon2009 ==> My personal opinion is that all pet cats should be under the control of their owners at all times, just like we require for dogs, That translates to “in the house” or “confined to the owners yard”.
No cat should ever be allowed to roam the neighborhood or countryside at will,
Good luck with that fantasy. And thanks! Should always start the day with a good laugh.
2hotel9 ==> Not sure about the source of your amusement though….you think that it would impossible to have and enforce such an ordinance? Or you think we shouldn’t have such an ordinance?
I was in the “pet” business many years. People who have purebred cats — Persians, Siamese, Maine Coon, Ragdoll, Bengal, Abyssinian and Sphynx — would never ever think of subjecting them to the dangers of uncontrolled access to the out of doors environment. These careful caring owners often set-up outdoor runs and play areas for their cats — usually repurposed chain-link dog runs with the addition of chain link on top as well. And with lots of climbing things and toys. In fair weather, these cat runs are available to the cats via a cat door.
Humans have a very wide variety of pet animals — dogs, goats, pigs (pot-bellied being a favorite), lambs and sheep, birds,snakes, lizards, frogs, turtles and tortoises, often what others would consider farm=yard animals like fancy chickens, pigeons, doves. None (almost) would be allowed to roam free in your neighborhood. (Pigeons are “let out” to fly on nice days and return to their lofts (or coops).
Except cats.
I am planning a series of articles on this odd phenomenon.
As I said, good luck with that fantasy, I will enjoy watching you flail about helplessly against the crazy cat lady faction, who are 100% leftarded Democrat Party voters. I just kill the ferals discretely and move on with my life. That is the most merciful course of action.