I am flabbergasted.  Well, no, that’s not true at all.  I am horrifically disappointed, yes, but I am not surprised.  The thought of our federal government continuing to torment, abuse and kill a federally protected bird now ceases to amaze me in the least.  It does, however, disgust me, just as it should everyone else.  You see, our government is perpetrating this crime because the animals are inconvenient to humans encroaching on the birds’ domain.

First, they killed two nesting adults who chose a golf course in Florida, apparently the domain of rich and intolerant self-indulging humans who helped spur the government, undoubtedly with much money, to kill the non-golfers as they had become inconvenient to the haughty cretins running rampant in the birds’ domain, a domain already limited by people forcing the raptors to seek whatever refuge they could find.  A golf course full of stupid people was not the best choice, but can you blame them for selecting a lush, green environment in which to nest and raise a family?  Well, assume you’re a large bird of prey before answering that question.

I can not measure the offense induced by reading about two magnificent creatures being killed by shotgun simply because they were deemed bothersome by mindless idiots who felt their unnatural needs were more important than the requirements of nature.  Sure, this is typical Homo sapien behavior, I know, but continuing this unreasonable mandate of human inconvenience over animal life is disturbing at best.

Then comes an update from the USDA that induced nausea and disappointment.  Instead of any lamentation whatsoever, government officials declared human convenience above all other considerations and said the only matter for concern was the question regarding what kind of permit the government needed in order to inhumanely massacre deal with the animals.  As Grrlscientist pointed out, problems with the USDA’s response go well beyond permits: what of the precedent set for other protected animals who become inconvenient?  What of the simple consideration of how human invasion of their shrinking habitat might require slightly less selfish consideration on the part of humankind?

No one can be so daft as to think that any of that matters, however, as “we the people” easily sacrifice other lifeforms and nature itself in favor of our own self-involved considerations.  Regardless of the impact, we obviously would much rather destroy than protect, even when such protection falls under the guise of federal law that will not be enforced or obeyed.  Who could possibly care about so-called lower lifeforms when insensitive and selfish human interests are at play?

It disheartens me to point out yet another callous and merciless assault on these wonderful animals, as pointed out by mArniAc, in the very same state where the previous attack occurred: Florida.  One must assume that USDA agents in Florida suffer from a vindictive and evil streak against harmless birds who act in protection of their homes and young, something we easily accept from humans as a natural response and inherent right.  Apparently that only counts when the subject in question is human, otherwise we deem such activity as hateful, troublesome and worthy of death and destruction.  Oh that we were the lowly creature grasping at every straw for our own survival.

The most recent case involves federal agents raping a hawk nest, stealing the offspring of this protected and wonderful animal, orphaning the young and disassociating it from its parents, and ultimately abusing nature to protect insignificant leisure activities.  What a pitiful species we are, yes?

Because the red-shouldered hawks in this case took shelter in a backyard tree, inflicting torment on the neighborhood’s human residents by way of swooping at them to protect their child and residence, our government, demonstrating infinitely lacking wisdom, stepped in and robbed these avian parents of their sole child.  After kidnapping the baby bird from its roost, denying its parents the ability to raise their own young and ensure its welfare, they destroyed the nest by pulling it out of the tree in its entirety.

Given the emotional and psychological impact of such an attack, the adult birds may not mate again, yet this appears to be a risk we are willing to take.  As I discussed just the other day in a conversation with loved ones regarding chaos theory and the impact of even minor changes to the whole, and certainly as this wrongfully cheerful celebration of human ingenuity over natural repercussions of our stupidity indicate, we humans execute a reactionary tendency to destroy life, wonder how the negative impact of such destruction could be true, and initiate yet more destruction in response.  In the case of the latter, we killed all the snakes and promptly wondered how all the rats came to be and what could be done to stop them from destroying our crops and harvests.  With regards to the former, we will continue to inhibit, retard, and finally destroy creatures such as the red-shouldered hawk until we have completely subjugated their natural habitat, after which we will scratch our heads in bewilderment over how some following plague came to be when it was originally kept in check by the very annoyances we obliterated.