Proud Parents

As a kid in school I was taught many things as gospel that later turned out to be absolutely false.

There are not nine planets, you will succeed with hard work, and survival of the fittest, are a few of those fallacies.

In case you missed it, astronomers decided Pluto was too small to be called a planet so, it was de-planetized.  In order to succeed, you merely need a good story and lack of personal responsibility to collect free food, housing, and cell phones.  And, survival of the fittest is not at all true; simply re-read the previous sentence.

Since the 1980’s, it was realized that California condors were not the ideal parents for which scientists had hoped.  At one point the estimated number remaining in the wild numbered 22.  All were captured and reared by humans.

You see, scientists placed sock puppets on their hands to mimic California condor mommies and daddies.  They would then feed the baby condors with meat, and conduct condor activities with the young’uns until they were capable of flying away to make their own baby California condors.  What could possibly go wrong?

This stellar idea was eventually proved stupid – even for a government program – after the birds that were released returned to the scientists’ homes for more raw meat and possibly bedtime stories.

Annual visits were noted with one scientist actually having his remote house burglarized by a flock of puppet-raised condors.  It seems as though eight of these feathered felons tore a hole in his screen door while he was out hiking.  Upon return, this scientist found his mattress shredded and one bird walking around with the brainiac’s underwear in its beak.  No lie.

Not to be outdone, the People’s Republic of Maryland has a program to similarly raise whooping crane chicks.  Yep, your tax dollars at work.

Scientists wearing white whooping crane costumes dressed themselves, and other researchers with no pride, before flying ultralight aircraft from Wisconsin to Florida.  This endeavor was an effort to build a migratory population of whooping cranes.

Fast forward 15 years.  This eastern population has grown to – drum roll, please – 100 birds, but with only 10 fledged chicks.  The St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge in northern Florida feel the culprit in this failed boondoggle, er, program was the fact that the cleverly disguised scientists were too involved in teaching the cranes how to survive in the wild.  Yep, too much teaching of how to survive.

The whooping crane scientists, and I’ll wager the California condor puppet parents, are helping gin-up good stories and coaching the birds about ways to get the government to give the fowl free food, housing, and cell phones.

I’m just saying…