Don’t Blame the Coots

Oxnard’s latest outrage is shooting American coots (Fulica americana) to preserve an artificial environment--a golf course. What planet and century do the Oxnard parks and recreation people think they inhabit?

This golf course was foolishly placed next to a public eyesore, our methane-oozing landfill, and its design included a series of attractive nuisances, i.e., water hazards that are known to attract duffers and coots alike.

The stage was set for conflict. Since duffers belong to a lordly species who believe themselves destined to play on celestial links soon after their deaths and are therefore not required to consider the consequences of their actions, the poor coots were selected for elimination, ostensibly for the heinous crime of being in the way and “defecating on the grass.”

The Oxnard City Council and its goons within the Parks and Recreation Department need to get with the times, and times demand that we all pay more attention to how we live on this planet. Killing birds to keep golf shoes clean is hardly the hallmark of a gentler and kinder nation.

This ridiculous confederacy of bureaucrats are easily compared to the person who puts up a bird feeder and then is astonished that the birds have the temerity to leave their droppings on the ground. So rather than remove the feeder, he opts to shoot the birds whenever they show up to eat. Idiocy. Pure idiocy and sloth.

DANIEL HAYES PEARSON, Port Hueneme