I have no sympathy for rodents

Last week I posted on Facebook that we caught a bunny in our Havahart trap.  Presumably the bunny that has destroyed 75-85 percent of my bean crop.  Never mind the woodchuck that has destroyed ALL of my gladioli, potatoes, coneflowers, and shasta daisies on the other end of the yard.

I was surprised so many people were sympathetic to Mr. Bunny and not to my plants.

Hey, plants deserve to live, too!

Pity the farmer behind our house.  I estimate that the animals that have been having dessert in my yard have been dining three meals a day on his soil and have destroyed a very big portion of his crops.  THEIR LIVELIHOOD.

Yes, Mr. Bunny and Mr. Chipmunk (I found one munching one of my tomatoes last evening) are "cute" but they aren't Chip and Dale or Peter Rabbit.  Give them skinny tails and they are what they are--RODENTS.

RODENTS = RATS.  Do you think rats are cute?  Are tiny mice, so cute in fiction, sweet and nice when they are running around in your silverware drawer crapping on the forks and knives?  Because I sure didn't think so last winter or in June when it happened again.

RODENTS = DISEASE.  The plague.  The Black Death.

Excuse me, but I don't find rodents in any form to be cute, nice, or Disney-esque.

The bunny we caught in the trap was let go in a rural area.  We did NOT kill it (unlike my rural neighbor down at the cottage who would catch critters in his Havahart trap and drown them in the bay--guaranteeing they would never eat his flowers and veggies again.)  I'm perfectly fine with relocating them.  But I'm not perfectly fine with them destroying crops, be they my own or my farmer neighbor's.

I realize this attitude will not win me friends with those who read Beatrix Potter -- but I'm sure the lady farmer wasn't happy when these pests ate her kitchen garden, either.  She just wrote about the "cute" side of rodents who wore waistcoats and spoke in full sentences--not squeaks that only a cat can hear.  And that was her livelihood.  Pity the poor farmer, already dealing with this year's intense weather conditions, who won't have money to feed his/her family this winter because not-so-cute rodents ate a big portion of his/her crops.

I am an animal lover.  (You wouldn't believe how much money I send to animal charities.  And not just those for cats and dogs--but a farm animal rescue, too.) But I draw the line at crop-eating, disease-ridden rodents.

This is just one subject where some of us just won't see eye to eye.  I'm afraid we're going to have to beg to differ.

I'm sure those in the rodent court have never planted gardens.  Maybe they should try.  I see a garden as eco-friendly and trying to limit my carbon footprint.

I can't do that if rodents trump humans in this food chain.