Imported critters

A neighbor asked if I heard any commotion the other night. I told him I did notice my dog barking more than usual. He said he knew why. He had just seen a coyote.

Not long after that I heard the distinctive, plaintive cry of the wayward Canid. This was followed by every dog in a 3-mile radius vocally asserting their territory in kind.

Coyotes are one of those species that don't belong here but ended up here anyway. At first they seemed to be a Wythe County phenomenon. I saw my first coyote up there five years ago just off 1-81. Now almost everyone in this area has seen them.

Thus far I see no decimation of the local wildlife due to these predators. I have to scare deer out of my driveway almost every day. But if the need arises, how does one get rid of coyotes? Offhand, I'd recommend products from Acme.

So why are they here? I theorize the government has been putting them here. Perhaps to eat up all those dangerous rabbits. Is it that much of a stretch? We've already seen how our governments cannot help themselves when it comes to busing kids to different school districts, so why not do the same with other species?

Yes, I'm a conspiracy theorist but consider this: The periodic sightings of 'panthers' have also been attributed to your tax dollars at work.

The prevailing suspicion is that the Bureau of Land Management or some other federal agency has been covertly importing Western cougars to counteract our increasing deer population. Thus the sudden rash of so-called 'mountain lion' or 'panther' sightings.

Hey, Roanoke! Didja get that? Instead of hiring a private hit squad for all those pesky deer, just import a few cougars. It's like introducing the falcon to control the pigeon population. And that worked just fine, right?

Leave it to the Feds to import a ferocious carnivore.

Some other possible importations:

Killer bees We used to believe the propaganda in The Weekly Reader regarding the spread of the dreaded Africanized Honey Bee . We'd anxiously study charts that revealed Downtown Dugspur awash in hives by the year 2000. Thus far they seem to be in stasis. Maybe they're afraid of coyotes.

Alligators They're not just for sewers anymore! Scuttlebutt has it that someone brought a baby alligator from Florida and set it free in Big Reed Island Creek. That was in the early '70s and I know there's no way it could have survived. But I still feel a tad uneasy every time I get in that creek. Nothing livens up local baptisms like the threat of carnivorous reptiles!

The question remains: what can we export to the West to tip the scales? How about half a billion Gypsy Moths? A trainload of 17-year Cicadas? Better yet, instead of bringing cougar here to eat the deer, why not simply send the deer to the cougar? Any trucks running empty to Wyoming? Let me peel Bambi off my bumper and we'll talk.