March 16, 2003
PETA VS. HUMAN BEINGS (part 6,907):
At Miami Airport, Rabbits on the Runway Bring Fears of a Vulture Clash (Manuel Roig-Franzia, March 16, 2003, The Washington Post)Mashed jackrabbits make irresistible snacks for hungry vultures. And hardly anything mashes a jackrabbit quite as efficiently as a speeding 747.The vultures that hang around at Miami International Airport have known this for a long time.
They've acquired a real taste for the blacktail jackrabbit, an oversized species that has an unfortunate habit of sprinting across runways at the wrong times. [...]
At least two dozen vultures have collided with jets in the past two years alone. None have caused accidents, but planes have crashed elsewhere because vultures were swept into jet engines. [...]
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants the rabbits trapped and resettled. But Ron Magill of Miami's Metrozoo said the traps would not catch enough of them to make a difference. He is pushing to exterminate the blacktails by shooting them.
"God forbid a tragedy happens at the airport because we let emotion take over," he said.
Our problem locally is turkeys, which infest the area around the airport. There is nothing quite so unnerving as driving by a few huge birds in a field next to the runways. Luckily, we have many hunters here and few PETAphiles. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 16, 2003 8:54 AM
I like the quote by Ted Nugent which went something like: "Every time PETA opens its' mouth I feel the urge to go out and kill something."
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at March 16, 2003 2:41 PMYou and Ted would love it here. The birds
that neighbor my runway are an endangered
native species of stilt. Not as big as a vulture
but quite capable of bringing down a jet.
In fact, strikes on planes is second only to
avian botulism in keeping the population down,.