Oh ya Ed,
Didn't you know about this? Don't get so upset cuz it's really a neat thing our DWR has come up with. Here is the deal.
A few years back they commissioned a group of wildlife biologists to do a study and figure out why prairie dog numbers were falling. Now we all know that wildlife biologists are highly trained individuals that have spent countless hours as USU students sitting in the bars drunk and talking over wildlife issues.
The DWR gave them $450,000 dollars of license fee money for the study and the results just came in. After years of back breaking field work they figured out the problem.
The problem was very complex and difficult to figure. But thanks to an extra grant of $200,000 from the SFW they were able to extend their field work an extra couple of years to solve this complex problem.
It seems that is rural parts of Utah where Prairie dogs once thrived, the lions had killed all the deer. The deer used to winter down in the flats but with no deer, the local kids began to poach black footed ferrets. The ferrets control prairie dog populations and have lived in co-existence with them for hundreds of years. But with no deer to poach, the kids began shooting the ferrets and soon the Ecosystem was all out of wack. With nothing to control the dog populations they quickly exploded and began to eat themselves out of existence.
With no coyotes in the area thanks to Ed, the prairie rats, uh I mean dogs soon devoured their range and food source. With no suitable habitat, they began to die off in vast numbers.
So by killing all the lions in the area, the DWR is convinced that the deer herd will bounce back quickly, the local kids will again begin to focus on poaching them instead of the ferrets, they will bounce back and the fragile prairie dog ecosystem will be restored to normal and prairie dogs will once again thrive.
You have to understand something Ed. These lions are bad, nasty foul creatures that have wreaked havoc on us long enough.
Look at Utah history for proof. The Mountain meadows massacre? Lions!! The vanishing fish numbers in Strawberry? Lions!!
Interestingly enough, the DWR's study also determined that the high unemployment rate in Utah was the lions fault, and remember the Mark Hoffman bombings and the salamander letter deal? Turns out it wasn't Hoffman but a female lion with two juvenile kittens.
And the local news just broke a story. They are acting on a tip received recently on the Doug Miller outdoors show... seems a new witness has come forward and claimed the night of Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping... a rogue tom lion was seen in the neighborhood roaming about.
With a grant from the SFW they are hoping to match DNA and pin the kidnapping on this lion.
You have to understand that us Utah folks are tired of being held hostage by these wild and dangerous lions. We are tired of them harassing our children, destroying our gardens, stealing our new SUV's, hurting our economy, decimating our deer herds***, showing up uninvited at our rodeos and sending the livestock and crowd into a panic frenzy, and preying on our elderly.
We aren't gonna take it anymore and with the fearless DWR and SFW on our sides, we are ready to fight back once and for all.
***Editors note: The decimating deer herds is just a theory, the rest of those are fact.
-Dawg
www.cougartracks.com
