Dexter Iowa Community Site

Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

We Iowans are pretty darn observant when it comes to things not being where they are supposed to be. We will stop in the middle of the road to watch a Bald Eagle although now that they are more plentiful we can now enjoy them without causing a traffic jam. Unless it’s a mountain lion sighting or something really cool like a wandering moose or black bear we don’t really think much about wildlife until we happen to splatter a rouge raccoon or opossum while driving. I think we are pretty much used to the critters we expect to see and pay them little attention.

As you can imagine it caused more than a few eye rolls last week when WHO TV ran a story on their news concerning a member of the Waukee city council spotting a coyote in the city limits! You don’t say? A coyote? Was he picking up something at the local ACME store? Perhaps he had followed the Roadrunner into the local bird seed store while planning his next trap.

So if you are a yuppie where would you turn if you spotted a random coyote and were worried that they might snatch the random child walking home from school? Of course, you would contact the local police department who in their infinite wisdom determined that it was hanging around because the city was growing and encroaching on its territory. WHO went on with this quote from their website “The uptick in coyote sightings are caused in part by a growing city, “Close to Sentential Park where there still is that type of habitat or environment, they have been seen there as well they are going to go to that area where there still is that wildlife," Sergeant Sposeto said.” That’s grade A reporting their and makes me wonder who writes their news items at WHO as obviously things are spelled phonetically because the last time I checked the proper spelling was “Centennial”.

I can only imagine that the people living there who really don’t know a thing about coyote’s and are freaked out by this are the same ones that clog up my social media feeds with lost cats and dogs and are the first to wonder about that strange smell when driving by a hog confinement. I’m starting to wonder if President Trump isn’t putting his proposed wall in the wrong place. Maybe it needs to sit north and south just to the east of Adel to keep the riff raff closer to the city and to keep them from causing problems here. Now I’m no expert on wild animals, but I’ve always gotten away with the rule of leave them alone and they won’t really bother you except for randomly eating the cat food left on the back step and snatching a chicken once in a while. Seriously are people this dumb? You know what causes this don’t you? A combination of yuppie coffee shops and soccer.

For those of us on the outside of the golden circle, it probably is best for us to start donating to any fund that protects wildlife and should serve not only as a lesson of what happens when you cover farm ground with fast food and parking lots, but also that we can’t expect everyone to have common sense anymore. I’m going to head out and stand guard just in case one of them wanders by my place and you can be sure I’ll call WHO to let them know. See you next week…remember, we’re all in this together.