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wrong_box · 11-19-2016, 03:00 PM

Quote:Occasionally I read these articles or see videos about how some small town is having trouble with wildlife. A couple of years ago, there was some small town having trouble with aggressive raccoons. This video is about how a small town is having trouble with wild turkeys!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/animals/t...vi-AAklvdL

I just don't understand what the problem is. Get out the shotguns and start blasting! Problem solved!

What is with these people?

PETA is the problem and organizations like them...Once back in the 80's in Idaho there were so many rabbits running around the country side that farmers were being wiped out...all the farmers and volunteers from neighboring counties came to help kill the rabbits...They named it the "Bunny Bop" PETA and all kinds of animal rights activists protested and of course sued to end the Bunny Bop but the Judges agreed with the farmers and so did the Supreme Court...

Below is excerpts from the article



"About 800 men, women and children, armed with ax handles, baseball bats, tire tools and golf clubs, stretched across a mile of the desolate prairie near Mud Lake and rounded up jackrabbits which they claim have done an estimated $5 million in crop damage.

"Many of the jackrabbits were beaten to death during the drive and others captured in a pen had their necks broken and their heads decapitated.''

The first jackrabbit drive on record in Jefferson County was in 1891 in Market Lake, which is now Roberts, according to a 1981 Post Register article.

Drives were held in the region whenever jackrabbits threatened crops, often in correlation with their 10-year population cycle.

However, the weekly drives in the winter of 1981-1982 brought media attention that turned the drives into a national circus."...

"There were casualties beyond the quarter-million — some say more than 1 million — dead jackrabbits. There were two court trials, $10 million in crop damages and a black eye dealt to the region's reputation.

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Sometime in the fall of 1981, jackrabbits overran the sagebrush at a rate of about one per square acre, according to expert estimates. They spilled out of the desert and ate through haystacks and acres of grain and alfalfa. Damage estimates topped $10 million.

A jackrabbit can grow up to nine pounds and eat a pound or more of food a day.

Orvin Twitchell and other men formed the Mud Lake Farmer's Rabbit Committee and appointed Twitchell chairman.

They hatched and executed a plan to hold jackrabbit drives every weekend from November to March. Volunteers would walk through sagebrush, shoulder to shoulder, funneling thousands of jackrabbits toward pens where they'd be exterminated in accordance with the 4-H handbook: a swift blow to the back of the head.

Today Twitchell, 84, helps run the Mud Lake Museum.

"We had a problem, and we set out to fix it,'' he said. "We aren't talking about Peter Cottontail. These are desert rats. That's all they are.''

"As far as jackrabbit killing methods go, clubbing was beautifully simple.

Before long, the Idaho Humane Society, Fund for Animals and other animal rights groups tried to stop the drives. Their spokesmen said they understood farmers had to kill the jackrabbits; they wanted it done in a more humane fashion, and they didn't want children participating in the drives."

"Lawyers from The Animal Fund took the farmers to court seeking to stop the drives on grounds of animal cruelty.

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Judges backed the farmers first in district court, then in the Idaho Supreme Court.

Twitchell claims that after the decision was upheld, the head of The Animal Fund, Cleveland Amory, accused him of being a bad winner.

"I told him, 'You son of a [BLEEP], we shouldn't be here in the first place,''' Twitchell said. "The judge didn't like me saying that in court.''

The jackrabbit population fell in 1983.

Mud Lake hasn't seen a jackrabbit drive since."

http://magicvalley.com/news/local/mud-la...963f4.html

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