So this week I took the granddaughter to Hogle Zoo, which has substituted Lego animals for real animals (not kidding) since everything's under construction.
Anyway, one of the Lego animals was a snake. The docent explained that just like the rabbits in Australia, a certain species of snake (I can't remember which one) accidentally introduced to a new environment (I can't remember where) went crazy and ate all the birds. And so now those birds are extinct.
"And now pet cats are doing the same thing," the docent told us, "WHICH IS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER LET YOUR CAT OUTSIDE."
Which is probably good, responsible advice. But seriously. I have to worry about dead birds now, too?
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I just read about a snake eating birds in trees. I had never considered tree climbing snakes. It's not so much guilt I am feeling but real uneasiness at the things that lurk out there.
Scientists should mass engineer an animal that feeds on snakes - like a super mongoose or something - and let those slithering creepies know just what it feels like to go extinct. You know, so birds and rabbits can rest easy. I'm totally not thinking of myself and my non-existent fear of snakes...at all.
As a kid, Sam was horrified to watch a snake slither up a tree trunk to eat baby birds out of a nest, while the mother flew around squawking. Nature is not always nice.
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