Dogs and Butterflies are the Same to Me

It seems that in this part of the United States, there seems to be a reckless disregard for wildlife. I have written in the past about how one moron was recklessly killing bumblebees with his hat in a protected area of a State Park. I have also written about how hunters will kill needlessly for a wall-mounted trophy and encourage their young kids to do the same. Driving down the road in the summertime, I frequently see box turtles smashed on the road by cars and trucks, and by the position of the kill, it is obvious that some careless driver deliberately aimed for the poor reptile. What did the turtle do, rush out in front of the driver and he had no time to stop? The same goes for the groundhogs (which I have also written about). These poor animals that frequent the shoulders and medians of our roads and highways have a tough life as it is, but to see tire tracks in the soft shoulder that leads to a dead groundhog is appalling. Why? Why kill these poor creatures?

My wife and I do all we can to watch out for wildlife while we are driving here in the Appalachians. Albeit a deer can cause serious damage to your vehicle, we still stop, swerve and go out of our way to avoid hitting a squirrel, rabbit, groundhog or a reptile. Any animal’s life is worth saving. All of God’s creatures have a purpose on this planet.

What I find even more appalling are the irresponsible pet owners that let their dogs and cats run free to be needlessly slaughtered on the highway. These people should be incarcerated.

If it should come down to choosing between the life of a squirrel and hitting an oncoming car head on, then I guess Rocky loses. But maybe I push the envelope too far. Just yesterday, at the moment of conception for this writing, I actually swerved to avoid hitting a butterfly. Silly as it may seem, the lives of butterflies are, to me, just as important as the lives of dogs, cats or a groundhogs.

Besides, the chaos theory would have been greatly interrupted, because everyone knows that when a butterfly flaps its wings in Peking, there is a thunderstorm in Detroit.

Think about it.

_{Copyright 2011 by Del Banks}