CNN
Greg Sanders once stalked his chief nemesis -- an otter nicknamed Phoky -- for 24 days.
When Sanders, a biologist, finally captured the critter at Southern California's Anacapa Island, he shipped Phoky north to Monterey under an ambitious federal program to preserve otters while protecting shellfish divers from natural competition.
But within six months, Phoky was back in forbidden waters.
Rumsfeld warned us about this problem.
"This concept of taking animals and putting them in one place and expecting them to stay where we want them ... wasn't really working," said Sanders, 44, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist.
The agency is taking public comment through January in hopes of scuttling the program, which cost several million dollars before it tailed off in 1993. Fishermen want the existing policy enforced.
In essence, we gotta keep the evildoers locked up forever. We shall spend any amount to protect ourselves from the evildoers.
Biologists had thought the otters would stay near San Nicholas, which has plenty of food and is surrounded by deep water that is hard to swim across. Even if the otters wanted to leave, it seemed improbable that they had the navigation skills to do it -- especially since they were taken to the island by plane.
"We flew 'em out there," Sanders said, "although we didn't blindfold them."
They needed Gen. George Miller. You gotta beat the shyte out of them. If they are unconscious you don't need the blindfold.
After waiting for an otter to fall asleep, wildlife crews would sneak up beneath it with a propeller-powered craft manned by a diver and snare it in a net. The otter then would be flown in a chartered plane or driven hundreds of miles to a Northern California beach for re-release. Some died from the stress.
Damn, this sounds familiar . . . well except for the release part.
Total cost: $6,000 to $12,000 per otter.
I would make a joke but that just ain't funny.
A few weeks ago, Sanders and other wildlife officials marked the 15th anniversary of Phoky's first capture near Anacapa. Phoky, though, didn't make it to the celebration. He had better places to be.
Last Sanders heard, the otter was rumored to be in Mexico.
All is lost if we have to protect that border.
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