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Show Rat to Life Society Jeanne Edwards of the Saval Ranch In northern Elko County recently passed along to us some correspondence from William J. "Dub" WaL.rip, general manager mana-ger of the Spade Ranches in the Lubbock Texas area. The correspondence deals with Wal-drips Wal-drips campaign to preserve the rats in New York City and other eastern seaboard scenic centers, in much the same manner that residents of those centers devote their energies and monies to the campaign to preserve coyotes in places like Texas and Nevada. In pursuit of his campaign, Waldrip has installed himself as president of the Rat to Life Society. One of his letters was addressed to the editor of the New York Times. In it, the president of the Rat to Life Society com -mented: "I read with interest, and some alarm, your account in the May 13th edition of the rats attacking a citizen in your fair city. My alarm was triggered by the inference in-ference that some action was to be taken against the entire rat population. This is certainly unfair, and I am grateful that we are more civilized out here in this part of the country. At one time we were just ' about as ignorant. We have, at times, population explosions of coyotes, wolves or other predators; bu!. clear thinking members of such organizations as Defenders of Wildlife, Wil-dlife, Sierra Club, Wilderness Society and a multitude of others have pointed out how fortunate we should feel to contribute our lambs and calves to the care and feeding of these poor animals. The fact that we now support more of these animals than ever before in pur country's history attests at-tests to the success of our program. "Since the great majority of the members of these associations come from the large population centers such as those along the eastern seaboard, I surely expect ex-pect them to join us in this fight to save our rats. Surely rats have as much entitlement en-titlement to life as coyotes and other creatures. To identify and punish the guilty rodent is one thing but to poison indiscriminately certainly will upset the delicate ecological balance. Don't tarn -per with our Ecosystem! "After all, you have plenty of folks up there. Don't you think it would be worth giving up a few of them for the joy of looking out at night and seeing a big trophy size boar rat silhouetted in the moonlight as he scampers up a pile of garbage?" Writing again as president of the Rat to Life Society, Waldrip explained to a supportive sup-portive donor to the cause: "Thank you very much for your generous gener-ous contribution. I can assure you that we are working diligently to save this precious heritage. However, we face a well organized, or-ganized, well financed,1 united group of folks who are very greedy and not the least bit interested in protecting this endangered species. "At present we are considering two courses of action and we are awaiting advice ad-vice from our legal counsel. We may (1) seek a court injunction to temporarily halt all of their murderous schemes until a full scale hearing can be scheduled; and (2) since New York has probably received re-ceived sufficient federal funds to be declared de-clared a portion of the public lands, we may ask the Bureau of Land Management to lend their expert assistance in helping us establish es-tablish an 'Adopt -a -Rat" program. Waldrip noted he sent along a copy of that second letter for the further enlightenment enlight-enment of the editor of the New YorkTimes, but we're not entirely confident the people at the New York Times or other denizens of the eastern seaboard are bright enough to comprehend what Waldrip Is trying to tell then. In any event, it's fun to watch as Waldrip slings the barbs at them; and we thank Mrs. Edwards for letting us in on the fun. Elko Daily Free Press |