There are a lot of mice and voles, so you know, we are not going to run out of rattlesnakes either.
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Alan Caruba, a blogger for Tea Party Nation, on the eastern diamondback rattlesnake potentially being protected under the Endangered Species Act. This rattlesnake is depicted in the ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flag that has become a rallying cry for the Tea Party.
I can’t even deal with the astounding level of ignorance concerning species survival displayed in this sentence. I thought people were taught about the necessity of habitats in the third grade.
(via ladydarwin)
I don’t know of any other wild animal in the United States that receives such systematic harm. Many states still allow rattlesnake roundups and kill or no-kill they damage populations of rattlesnakes. This is an issue that I’m personally passionate about and want to make people aware of the impacts these events are having not only immediately on the snake populations but on the attitudes of the next generation of humans. For more information about round-ups, here’s the Humane Society’s website: http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/rattlesnake_roundups/facts/rattlesnake_roundups.html