We had a plague of cottontails here in Connecticut, but it has abated. Gwynnie reports that as we took our walk tonight, the hoo-h-h-h-h-hoo h-h-h-hoo! of the Great Horned Owl was very near, and thinks there's a logical connection.We agree. There's more: Burt, a bull terrier who lives north of Redding, reported to his family (who we know) the presence of a couger in his back yard, and the state DEP confirmed it from the scat. Felis concolor, Mountain Lion, Puma, Catamount, the real thing.
Fred, a nice dog in Weston, was nearly taken part by a wolf - no, not a big coyote.
Gee, isn't this great! Audubon and the Friends of the Earth must be thrilled at the return of the balance of nature, compensating for Connecticut's massive deer herd - nearly ten times the maximum sustainable population. Just great.But -- but -- when the population of predators gets the deer in check, and their numbers diminish accordingly, what do the tree-huggers think the famished predators will have to start eating? Gwynnie thinks they will eat anything that isn't a danger to themselves: cats, dogs, kids, unarmed joggers, schoolbus queues, and the like.In California, the penalty for killing a lion is greater than that for killing a man. 
Granolafornia will learn, someday, that this might not have been wise."They were here first" is most often heard -- listen for it. Wonder. "They" are probably (individually) 3-6 years old; "they" haven't been here for 200 years. If you are a real "They were here first" liberal, please -- remove your house from the desecrated earth beneath it, and go back to the Old Country where your ancestors lived the last 20,000 years. "They (the beasts) were there first" too, but maybe it was longer than you can relate to. (Save the sabre-toothed tiger)!
With your house recycled into mulch, I can get a better field of fire at the larger predators lurking in the bush.
Note from Editor: They were here first - not that that matters. So were dinos. But I hear these beautiful, majestic animals prefer vegetarians and liberals for meals. It's a wierd thing, but the wild animals like to eat those who surrender easily to danger. There is less effort involved. I guess it's a Darwinian thing. And I do not believe that there are pumas in the Northeast. Bobcat scat, I suspect. Or am I in denial?
