Soup ‘em up

We humans do take things to the extreme. The U.S. army is apparently expanding their training operations at Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert and in doing so wants to “relocate” around 1,100 threatened California desert tortoises. The obvious question is: why? Firstly, the dessert is kind of a big place; can’t they find another area or part of it to play bang-u-r-dead? Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of any reptilia roaming around in slow speed just being in the way, but if it is not really necessary moving them and getting those pesky environmentalists and tree huggers after ya, why make all the trouble? And if this particular area of the dessert is sooooo damn important, fuck the bloody tortoises. Make soup of them, have the soldiers learn how to survive on slow moving stupid animals. Why spend all the time, money and effort moving them? Just kill 'em and be done with it.

Apparently they have moved these thingies before, with less flattering results. Moving desert tortoises is not always successful. The Army relocated more than 600 of the animals last year but suspended the $8.7-million program after the first phase when officials noted high mortality rates among the tortoises, chiefly because of coyotes. Reports LA Times today.

But one quote from LA times you really need to read because this says it all, it’s about tortoises attracting respiratory disease: “Everly said the Army is blood testing every tortoise and will quarantine any found to have the disease.”

Blood testing? Quarantine? $8,7 million? Wtf!? How about give me half that money and I fly over, kill all those buggers, open up a restaurant where I serve ‘em with cold beer. This is completely insane and so unnecessary. And aren’t the US military supposed to help out during this recession, saving some money? If they really need to stay in Afghanistan and waste tax money, can’t they at lest NOT move tortoises for a living? These guys are supposed to be killers! Not cuddling with stupid animals.