Got your Prairie Dog Permit?
Image by mandj98 via FlickrPrairie dogs are considered pests not just by farmers and ranchers — their burrowing can render vast acreages unsuitable for cattle grazing — but by golf course operators and even agencies of the federal government. (Threatened with fines of a $100,000 a day from the Federal Aviation Administration, the City of Albuquerque, N.M. reluctantly agreed to exterminate an infestation of prairie dogs at the airport in March of 2007.)
The animals are cute, though they can carry a disease known in animal populations as the sylvatic plague — among humans as the “Bubonic Plague.”
Like most rodents, prairie dogs reproduce, well … like rodents. Each female bears four to six pups per year. Since most of their natural predators other than man have been eliminated or greatly thinned out, we’re not likely to run out of prairie dogs any time soon.
There are two kinds: black-tailed and white-tailed prairie dogs. In 1905, one group of white-tailed prairie dogs isolated in southern Utah was identified as the Utah Prairie Dog (Cynomys parvidens.)
Some biologists believe two of the white-tailed subspecies, C. parvidens and C. leucurus, were once a single interbreeding population, and have suggested the three white-tailed “species,” C. leucurus (identified 1890), C. gunnisoni (identified 1855), and C. parvidens should be grouped together under the name Cynomys gunnisoni.
Can the different “species” interbreed and bear fertile offspring, which would indicate they’re not really separate “species,” at all? No one seems to know. And “preservationists,” of course, don’t want to find out — any more than they want to acknowledge the polar bear can’t be a “threatened species” if it can breed and produce fertile offspring with regular brown bears.
These days, those who wish to block all human development on the land find it real handy to have even rodent pests broken down into as many “species” as possible.
There may be plenty of prairie dogs overall, but back in 1972 only 3,300 Utah prairie dogs could be found in 37 colonies. The “species” was listed as endangered.
By the spring of 2004 the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources counted 4,022 of the critters, estimating their total population at 8,000. The species was upgraded from “endangered” to “threatened.”
What does that mean, in practical terms, to residents of southern Utah?
A federal “prairie dog permit” is now required to build a home, even on private land, in the affected counties. This year, more than 600 such “permits” were sought by about 82 land-owners — some of whom wanted to build subdivisions.
Only 62 permits were granted. Some have waited more than three years for “permission” to build on their own land.
This is what the extreme environmentalists want. They do not believe the earth is a place which human beings are supposed to put to their use. Rather, their faith teaches them that human beings are an alien “infestation” on the land — explaining their willingness to use any excuse, no matter how bizarre, to “protect” the most barren landscape from any human incursion.
They do not seek merely to “protect” lovely babbling brooks from being turned into slag heaps, arguing mankind might find a more productive use. Rather, they seek to protect nature and its resources FROM being made useful to mankind.
U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, recently told the St. George Spectrum “It is entirely unacceptable that a person must wait years to build a home on their own property.”
Yes it is. But attempting to “compromise” with the green extreme, paying lip service to the need to “protect” the “threatened prairie dog where appropriate,” spots the enemies of property rights and human progress two runs at the top of the ninth.
It is this entire religious doctrine, so at variance with the pride most Americans feel for the way we have built shining cities and fed the world by making the desert bloom — this doctrine that mankind is an alien “infestation” on the land — that needs review and reconsideration.
Yes, the green extreme has a right to believe this (though if they really do, one wonders why they continue to have children, or — having born them — suffer them to live.) They’re even free to buy private land in southern Utah at market rates, pay the property taxes on it, and refrain from making any productive use of that land save turning it over to serve as a deluxe preserve for prairie dogs.
But the rest of us are supposed to be protected by the First Amendment from having any such religious doctrine “established” by the government — which is to say, imposed on us by force of law.
June 18th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Cute little prairie dog. Does she have a name?
June 19th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Her name is Penelope.
July 6th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Google the Rodenator (trade mark). It will get rid of your prairie dogs in their burrows. The Rodenator pumps a mixture of oxygen and propane into their burrows, then ignites it. The resulting explosion destroys the burrows and any animals therein. Of course it makes a loud noise, but a minute after you use it no one can tell.
July 13th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Vin Suprynowicz:
If it stops one criminal??
———————————————————————-
Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:19:32 -0300
From: “M.J. Ackermann, MD”
Subject: Re: “Your Safety is your Responsibility” says Translink
To: “[email protected].”
CC: Nina Rivet
Sandra, et al.,
Believe it or not, personal safety IS an individual responsibility and
right, although for the last five decades it is not recognized as such
by Canadian governments.
The simple fact is that it is the assailant that chooses the victim and
the time, place, and manner of assault. Whatever else they may be, most
violent criminals are neither stupid nor suicidal, and so they choose
scenarios that strongly favor their chances of success in their attack
and evasion of capture.
Another irrefutable fact is the police, no matter how well motivated,
staffed, trained, equipped, and deployed, simply cannot be on scene
until several minutes after they are called. This leave ample
opportunity for violent criminals to have their way with victims
rendered defenseless both physically and psychologically by 50 years of
soft-on-crime but hard-on-self-defense policies of governments from both
ends of the political spectrum.
Only once the absolute right of every trustworthy lawful citizen to
train and equip for, and then practice effective self defense is once
again recognized will we see significant reductions in to rates of
victimization. The only tool proven to be effective in nearly 100% of
cases for this purpose is the concealed-carry sidearm.
Since there is no one else there to stop the attack than the victim,
stopping it is indeed her right and duty. It is her right for all the
reasons we have an individual right to Life. It is her duty because
failing to stop the criminal inevitably leads to further attacks against
other victims, many of whom may not be so luck as to escape unharmed.
When an attack is in progress, our court system can’t stop it. see Eric Fish/Abramenko . .
The cops can’t stop it.
The schools can’t.
Only you as an individual can.
——– ——- ———— ———– ————– ——————–
From: [email protected]
Subject: So, No one NEEDS a gun? #
Date: July 12, 2008 1:10:30 PDT
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],
This letter appeared in the opinions section of the April 5, 2001 issue of the Mariposa Gazette. This woman obviously understands that the socialist imbeciles in Sacramento confiscated her grandchildren’s ability to defend themselves effectively.
The second letter, by the same woman, takes it to the heart of the matter in that
it is those legislators who are responsible for the deaths of those children.
Question Legislation
I am writing to alert my fellow Mariposans to something going on at the state level that should be far more frightening to you than the so called “energy crisis.”
We must remember our legislators have a tendency to use such media hogging items to conceal their dirty legislation.
SB52 and AB35 will require you to be fingerprinted, pay an unlimited fee, pass a written firearms law test, pass a shooting proficiency test, pass a hand gun handling demonstration exam, require notification of address change (just like a registered sex offender), pay fees that begin in the $40 to $50 range going as high as $100 or more, and comply with various loaning and transferring laws in order to own a handgun.
And what if you do not pass these tests?
I am the paternal grandmother of the two children brutally stabbed to death with a pitchfork inside their rural Merced home on Aug. 23, 2000.
Although there were sufficient guns in the house for my granddaughters to defend themselves and their siblings, because of my son’s willingness to comply with California State law, two of his children are dead.
(Had the girls been able to get to the gun, by California law, my son would have been charged with a felony).
If it had not been for my nine-year-old granddaughter’s willingness to sacrifice her life for her siblings, four of them would be dead. The man who killed them was a stranger to the family and though not on drugs at the time,
was a known drug abuser.
He had recently been arrested for assaulting a police officer and was on parole because of jail overcrowding.
(Yet they would have room for me should I fail my test and refuse to give them my gun.)
The killer had already violated his parole. The police knew his address. They knew where his mother and grandmother lived. He had mental records. His wife had reported that he had kidnapped her and held her at gunpoint in 1997. She had more recently reported he left threatening messages on her answering machine.
Yet my son would have been in more trouble had his 14 or 13 year-old daughters been able to get to his gun.
How safe will we be against these predators if they know we are not armed? ##
Please think about it, and call your legislators today.
Mary Carpenter
Grandmother of Slain Children Protests Trigger Locks and Mandatory Gun Storage
by Mary Carpenter
April 20, 2001
North Carolina General Assembly
To Whom It May Concern,
To my understanding you are debating the passage of laws requiring trigger locks and mandatory storage of guns. I am a second generation resident of the State of California, a mother and a grieving grandmother. I wish to express to you how trigger locks and mandatory storage laws in the State of California affected my family. I hope my testimony may save someone in our state from sharing the pain we must now endure for the remainder of our lives. No law you can pass will keep the irresponsible from shooting accidents or a felon from stealing a gun. I am enclosing a portion of a letter I wrote to my own state legislators concerning the constant progression of laws restricting our guns in my state.
Depending on whether or not you truly care, you may or may not recognize my name. I am the paternal grandmother of the two children who were brutally murdered inside their rural Merced California home on August 23, 2000 by a stranger with a pitchfork.
Instead of suing gun manufacturers, I am of the opinion it is our lawmakers who need to be sued.
It was you who created the laws that kept my grandchildren from being able to defend themselves with any weapon greater than their bare hands. All of my son’s children had been trained in the use of firearms but were unable to get to their Dad’s weapon because of California State Law.
You, who have CCW permits or armed bodyguards, or both, expect me to face a society gone mad because of drug-altered brains and lax laws on the perpetrators of crime? You had no room in your prisons for the killer of my grandchildren though his wife had reported to the police in Mojave California, in June of 1997, that he had forced her and their infant son into his car (kidnapping), while living in southern California? At that time she also reported how she had managed to escape from him in Mojave after he held a gun to her head (assault with a deadly weapon) threatening to kill her and their one-month-old child? Though more recently she had given to the Dos Palos California Police Dept. the tape from her message minder, threatening to kill her present husband?
Though he had assaulted a police officer while resisting arrest for drug charges?
Though he had violated his parole by not appearing at his hearing and they had a warrant out for his arrest? Though they knew where he lived, and also his mother and grandmother, yet failed to pick him up?
Will you then find room for my son in your prisons should his fourteen-year-old daughter have access to his gun while she is babysitting her siblings?
There is a growing list, in my area alone, of people (mostly women) who might still be alive had they not been in a state where the use of a gun was prohibited. Juli Sund, Carole Sund, Selvina Pelosso, Joie Armstrong, Ashley and John William Carpenter to name a few.
Lawmakers talk big about a woman’s right to choose yet don’t allow me the very basic right to choose to defend myself?
If teachers were allowed to carry a concealed weapon to school you would see the school shootings disappear.
The same is true with the citizen on the street.
The reason is, these killers are cowards.
You can tell by their choice of victims.
They operate best where they know there are no guns.
( All school mass killings were ‘gun free’ zones’ . . Len)
Look at your child tonight and imagine him or her with their eyes jabbed out, their skulls splintered, their brains pierced, and their spines broken with the heavy tines of a spading fork.
In defending her sisters to the death with the only weapon you allowed her, Ashley had 138-puncture wounds.
Twenty-nine of them were on the right side of her face, five on the back of her head, and thirty-seven to her chest and lower neck. (Obviously he was trying to behead her.)
She was nine years old.
While committing no crime greater than sleeping in his parents bed, in his own house, John William, 7 years old, was stabbed 46 times, with most of them in the chest, neck, and head.
Depending on the condition of your heart, you may or may not feel a small measure of the pain my family and I must endure for the remainder of our lives.
Now, imagine all the gun laws you can dream up and honestly admit whether or not they would have stopped such a mad dog as this. This man was a total stranger to the family, and other than a trace of marijuana, was not on drugs at the time. However, by the testimony of his wife and girlfriend, he was a drug user who became frightening whenever he used them.
All your imagined gun laws will do is insure someone’s children will die again.
Take a drive downtown and see for yourself all the drug addled brains.
You may declare gun free zones, but you cannot declare killer free zones.
This tragedy has made me realize I am not even safe in my locked home, my barn, or my backyard.
I dare you to request the autopsy reports of John William & Ashley Danielle Carpenter done on August 28, 2000, from Sheriff Tom Sawyer of the Merced County Sheriffs Dept. Also ask him for the police interview with the killer’s wife and girlfriend telling about his drug use and devil worship.
Ask Detective Parsley about his fetish for horror movies produced by a John Carpenter, (no relation to us), and one he especially liked, that we have learned depicts a killing done with a pitchfork.
His last employment was as a telemarketer in Merced.
If you have an honest bone in your body you will see this country is in desperate need of a change of heart not the gun laws that have been in place for over two hundred years.
All the gun laws you can imagine cannot change the heart of a killer and you know it.
Until man’s heart is changed, we will be like sheep led to the slaughter without our weapons of defense.
May you stand before God and man as my two precious grandchildren’s killer if you pass any more gun legislation that will make me a felon should I own a handgun or any other gun for that matter.
Sincerely, Mary Carpenter
Merced, California
Deaths In Merced
by Vin Suprynowicz . . .Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
SEPT. 24, 2000
Shouldn’t we repeal the gun laws … if it’ll save a single child? (Vin S)
—————————————
# See Bob and Bonnie Dagenais, Ottawa,
How safe will we be against these predators if they know we are not armed? ##
”They deliberately chose a cottage with someone inside it, the teenager told the court.
Michaud saw Bob Dagenais go to the cottage door and lock it before firing his shotgun, the youth testified.
“Now it’s time,” Michaud said as he pulled the trigger, according to the co-accused.
When they entered the cottage, the youth said he fired at Bonnie Dagenais.
“You missed her, shoot her again,” Michaud ordered, according to the youth.
Michaud’s first-degree murder trial is expected to last another week.
The teenager is scheduled to be prosecuted next year.”
The killers were sentenced . . to life . . the victims were sentenced to death . .
They are both out now . .
Thank you legislators
Len Miller
VPD retired
August 24th, 2008 at 1:47 am
To Mary Carpenter, my sincerest condolences and heartfelt grief for your loss. It may not be much of a comfort to you, but it should be a lesson for all of what one woman of strong motivation can accomplish by appearing in front of her state legislature. In this particular case, I’d recommend availing yourself of a copy of the Militia Of Montana’s “Invasion & Betrayal” video. The last 10 minutes of it is dedicated to the video recording of the gorgeous Dr. Susanna Gratia, as she recounted the horror of seeing BOTH her doctor parents murdered in front of her, by the wacko that drove his S.U.V. through the windows of a Luby’s Canteen in Killeen TX, and murdered some 11 others at the time with his twin Glocks ablazin’. She WOULD’VE been able to turn the tables on him IF Texas had have had concealed carry permissios at the time. Instead, being the law abiding citizen she was at the time, her piece was ‘safely’ locked in the trunk of her car.
In summation, she tells the Legislators in the panel, that she didn’t need a gun to protect herself from that madman – she needs it to protect herself from THEM!
Their response? Does Texas have concealed carry laws now? Any more questions?
And to Len Miller, may God Bless you with a healthy long life as you battle for our GOD-GIVEN right to self defense. And yes it is God given people. What was Jesus Christ’s take on swords? (sidearms)
Check out Luke 22:36 – Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse let him take it, and likewise his scrip; and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
Sounds more like a commandment than a suggestion to me. This conversation was being said just prior to Him and His disciples leaving the last supper to go to the garden of Gethsemane on the mount of Olives. So as they’re leaving the room, verse 38 says; And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, It is enough.
This tells me that a sword to Jesus was like an American Excuse card – you didn’t leave home without it.
And one of those swords was soon put to good use, lopping off the ear of one of the high priest’s servants who’d come to arrest Jesus. Verse 50 – And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear.
To Len Miller, I count it a privilege to know you, and an honor to know you’re a friend not just of me, but in ALL the peoples’ corner. For those of you who don’t know Len, he’s a former soldier, who protected Canada against the foreign enemies of those times, then a Vancouver City policeman, protecting the citizens from the
local enemy, and now, even in retirement, he’s tireless in his campaign to protect Canada’s citizens from our common DOMESTIC enemy – our governments!
Regards,
Vaughn McMillan