Medium Happiness

I firmly believe, that as human beings, we should share the planet with the animals. Even though we have pretty much covered all of the United States with the built environment we need to remember that we weren’t the first ones here. With out exception, where you sit reading this, there was once the wild and untamed. Apparently, a lot of people in New York City don’t know, appreciate, or grasp this.

In the past two days two disturbing stories have popped up. The first, involving a raccoon that climbed up a tree on East 88th St. The raccoon was more or less minding its own business until enough people complained and the cops came and shot the poor thing with so many tranq darts that it died. The creature would have most likely crawled down and gone back to wherever it was originally, once the gawkers disbanded. The picture is heart rending, look at the little guy:

Then, this morning I was reading “The Paper” ie Metro or AM New York, when I gazed the front page story, “One for the birds: could robotic hawks solve the city’s pigeon problem?,” in which a plan that would rid the city of its supposed “pigeon problem” is outlined. At no point in the story is anything mentioned about how pigeons are problematic, only that we need to be rid of them. Not surprisingly, it’s a dip-shit, local politician (Simcha Felder, D-Brooklyn) who’s mongering the pigeon fear (He’s also talking about creating a “Pigeon Czar”).

Sure, pigeons are a nussiance, perhaps, but they have as much right to be here as we do. I have not read the book yet but I’m betting that “Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird” by Andrew Blechman might convince people that pigeons aren’t so bad after all.

Anyhow, New Yorkers, you had better get hip with nature soon or somebody might Rewild your asses. That’s right, have you read about that? There is an offshoot of naturalists and environmentalists who want to bring back some of the large carnivores that used to roam North America. Luckily, if they release saber tooth tigers (note: this may require some Jurassic Park style shit) I will be ready because I played the video game Caveman Ugh-lympics when I was a kid: not only do I know how to defend myself using a club, I know how to outrun the beasts, too.