By Jim Fisher

I live in the country on a small farm so wildlife is a common and sometimes a nuisance phenomenon. I have had all sorts of wildlife in my laundry room over the years: from hatching the eggs of a bluebird that had been killed by a feral cat to thawing out the new born calf whose mother dropped him in the freezing creek early one March. Last year there was a rather large turtle who had attempted to cross the road only to be holed up in his shell as the cars and trucks passed over the top of him. I helped him get to the other side. Then there is that often internal conflict of the baby raccoon whose mother was ran over on the road and it comes crying out of the nest in the hollow tree. The little baby that is just so adorable and instantly bonds to you as its surrogate mother. You can’t turn away from the cutest of baby wildlife even though you know, darn well that if you save that raccoon’s life it will only come back as an adult to kill all your chickens. Yes, as a country boy I know about wildlife in many ways, what makes them come onto your land and what keeps them away.

I recently received a questionnaire from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.The questionnaire was about introducing certain predator wildlife into the state of Illinois. The cover of the questionnaire had an interesting picture so I opened it. The typical survey of answering questions on a scale of 1 to 6.One of the first questions was: What do I consider wildlife? Frogs, cows, butterflies, horses?ladybugs? spiders!? OK now I’m thinking,how much taxpayer money was spent to pay some ideology or probably a committee of the sort to write such a questionnaire. But it got better; do I believe cougars would present a risk to the deer population? Duh! cougars eat deer. It’s a “natural” fact; the more deer in Illinois the more cougars in Illinois. Always has been, always will be. But here are the best ones; agree or disagree. Animals should have the same rights as humans! Yeah let’s give those spiders freedom of the press, butterflies freedom of speech. And frogs the right to vote. (I didn’t see donkeys on the list.) Now,just when I thought it could not get any more ridiculous, the last question was: Would it be more rewarding to help animals rather than people?It would appear the Illinois Department of Natural Resources is a subsidiary of Planned Parenthood.

Jim Fisher has lived on a small farm outside of Hudson for 30 years. Jim has been married to Jayne for 36 years. Together they have raised two daughters.  (no grandchildren). Jim has served on the Unit Five Board of Education. Jim works with the McLean County Tea Party.

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