Time Out! Give Keiko A Reward For Aggressive Behavior
Marauding hooved (and finned) animals in the news, Part 16:
They Don't Call Them `Killer' for Nothing: Down in Newport, Ore., Keiko, the "Free Willy" spokeswhale, was sent to the "time-out" tank this week for displaying aggressive behavior, such as bashing his nose against public-viewing windows. Marine biologists at the facility say they can't explain the belligerent behavior of the whale, who has spent the vast majority of his life in oversized aquariums.
Perhaps he wants out.
They Must Have Been on Vacation: Republican state Sens. Jim Hargrove of Hoquiam and Pam Roach of Auburn have introduced legislation to legalize limited hunting of bears, cougars and bobcats with dogs. This is despite last fall's citizen's initiative, in which two-thirds of state voters agreed the practice should be banned.
Roach told The Associated Press the measure absolutely is not in conflict with the intent of the initiative.
In an apparently unrelated development on the same day, another pair of rural Republican state senators introduced legislation to declare the Auburn Supermall a World Biosphere Reserve.
Coming to a Pork in the Road: Over in Colville, the crack Stevens County Assault With a Deadly Bacon Product Task Force has arrested a second suspect in the attempted murder of a local man, who was tied across a road and festooned with bacon. Perpetrators allegedly tried to shoot the man, but when their gun failed, they scattered bacon around him with the hope that wild bears and wolves would come along and eat him.
The crime, apparently the first attempted porkicide anywhere outside of North Dakota, raises all sorts of fascinating legal/gastronomic questions, not the least of which is whether using live humans decorated with pork products violates the state's new ban on bear baiting.
An official with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, who begged not to be identified, said that while it now is illegal to use bait to lure a bear to its death, there apparently is no law (aside from attempted murder) prohibiting the use of people as bear food, per se.
However, if said person/bear food was rotund in nature, "the old restriction on using pastries, doughnuts and other baked goods as bear bait might well apply."
Confused? Just remember the general rule: It's OK to use elk urine to lure big game in Washington state. It is not OK to use your next-door neighbor.
Selective Fisheries: Incidentally, the Stevens County case should have no bearing on an earlier Fish and Wildlife ruling that it's legal to use dis-favored acquaintances as halibut bait in the Strait of Juan de Fuca - but only on barbless hooks.
Elk On Wheels: Another group of Olympic Peninsula elk is being relocated. A herd on the lower Elwha River near Port Angeles will be rounded up and trucked to the Skokomish River drainage in the southeastern Olympics early next month.
The Lower Elwha elk thus joins the prestigious company of Sequim's lower Dungeness herd, large numbers of which were trucked off to southern Peninsula climes last year after committing a capital elk offense: Doodling up the lawns of rich Californian retirees.
An elk-herd representative had a mouth full of expensive rhododendron leaves and had no discernible comment.