Some folks, my daughter included, think of me as an often taciturn stoic. On the other hand, many people, my daughter included, are among the folks that consider me a bleeding heart, aside from my fiscal and other economically conservative viewpoints.

I'm an #animal_lover, not so much #cats, but certainly, even #dogs that have attacked and bitten me, I find forgiveness and relate to almost all dogs in an intimate and understanding, empathetic way. It must be shit not to be able to explain yourself to a human because you simply don't speak one of their human languages.

Yes, I'm a dog person, and can rarely find fault in all but the most vicious and unredeemable members of that species.

That having been said, along with all the cats that didn't give me a choice but to allow them to claim me as their human and then indoctrinate me or somehow permit them to own me, I have a hard time with some other species, allowing them to exist, including a wonton desire to kill them onsite as vermin - #Rats, oddly enough are not one of them. I find them to be cute and intelligent, friendly little pets. Neither are #raccoons, and I've had a few wild racoons as (if you will) wild pets that I often would share my sandwiches with on a regular basis.

But #possums.... I kill them onsite. The moment I see one of those #marsupials, I either go to my car or my house, draw a firearm, and end them. That's unfair from many perspectives I know. But bear with me.

When I was five years old, my mother awoke me from a sound sleep as a little boy in rural #Arkansas. I was in my jammies, complete with sewn in footies. She said, "Your father wants to see you." It was in the middle of the night, and I really don't know what time it was.

At that age, you really can't take on a whole lot of responsibilities, you're not really all that good at chores, but you do get some, in line with your passions, and one of my passions was playing with all my #chickens and tending to their feeding.

As I went outside into the darkness of the night led by my mom, in tow by hand towards a spot near my chicken coop, I saw the illuminated area of the yard from my father's flashlight. As we approached he said, "Son...", and then he shone the flashlight up into a small tree about ten feet from the chicken coop where about ten #hens were housed, and said, "Come take my gun. That possum up in the tree just killed all your hens.", and then he waved that light towards a bloodied pen of guts and gore smeared across the perches and ground and chicken wire that was the home of all my hand-fed hens.

Photo courtesy WildlifeRemoval.com

Well, yah, five years old. Rural Arkansas. #Massacred food producers and pets - for pure sport, for fun?. #Vermin in the tree above me. Colt Single Action Army revolver in .45 Long Colt in my hand. Five fucking years old and traumatized... Barely awake and crying over my dead laying hens.

"Now son.... do your job. You know what that is."

I brought that fucker down after a couple or three shots, but my dad had me stand back and took over coz, well, y'know, possums play possum, and they can come back to live in a ferocious instance to maul you - so he put a big fat slug in that fuckers brain and flattened it's skull in front of me.

To this day, I cannot help myself. I know a lot of folks that think all racoons are evil, but I was indoctrinated by Mister Walt Disney and watched all those zany Disney racoon movies which portrayed them as harmless but mischievous and playful, inquisitive, furry animals. And still I am, unable to see a racoon as vermin although I know in many cases that's exactly what they are.

Similarly, I'm incapable of seeing a possum as anything but a furry Satan that needs to be exterminated.

Bad rap? misconceptions? perhaps. I know a few rehabbers that rescue possums. In theory, I can harness my intellect but in reality, a murderous rage consumes me and protection mode kicks in - I must destroy that vermin before it kills my food producing pets.... Even if I don't have chickens (which I have, on and off all of my life.

I can't help but wonder if a bit of the same type of vilification exists in Australia towards another marsupial cousin of the possum. I know I've always thought of Kangaroos as a cute and furry fellow inhabitant. Am I wrong for harboring such warm endearments? Are you and your friends wrong for trying to provide them with a chance at an unmolested life in the wild? Are others in your country wrong for categorically dismissing them as vermin that need to be exterminated to protect us and our loved ones, including our livestock.

I do not know the answer to those last few questions, but I sense that videos like the following don't make a great case for them, when their threatening the lives of, "mans' best friend", and that poor dog, probably a selfless protector of someone's toddlers, is seemingly threatened with its very own existence at the hands of what appears to be a less than empathetic kangaroo...

Feel free to consider me ignorant - I am. I've never been to Austtralia, and figure that one of the first things I'd want to do is go and feed and pet some wild kangaroos - that should tell you right there how ignorant I am of the whole ordeal, but again, the attached video isn't especially redeeming compared to how people the world over see canines as the most trusted of all non-human family members.

Well you participate and you learn, lolz... apparently, we can't attach videos here, so I've pasted a link to a santized version of it in order to protect everyone's privacy...

https://invidious.fdn.fr/shorts/RngRlQwy4Hk?si=AMDxNSkSMJYoTHl1&local=true

Anyway, I guess what I may be looking for is a dialog or at least a balanced explanation as to why so many folks are seemingly comfortable, even compelled, with exterminating kangaroos on sight, while other's are committed in such a selfless endeavor to rescue and rehab and reintroduce them into their natural habitat or protected facilities - why such the duality? You already understand the trauma in my psyche over their marsupial cousins, the possum.

What kind of understanding do you think that we can all come to that will protect the assets of subsistence folk while ensuring the unadulterated coexistence of the kangaroo?

Thanks, and thank you for sharing your heart-felt post, and exposing a much lighter and endearing side of animal husbandry.

Your friend,

#tallship #solutions #husbandry #rehabilitation #wildlife #encroachment

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