Authorities in Oregon may think their standoff woes are behind them now that Ammon Bundy in is the hands of federal authorities . But the end of one problem could mark the beginning of another, given that a group of radical pigeons has signaled its intent to occupy the Malheur Wildlife Refuge.
“This exhibition of unrestrained Government aggression will not go unanswered.”
Though they express solidarity with previous occupiers, their grievance is not with the treatment of ranchers, but with the dedication of vast tracts of land to refuges for minority bird species, while god-fearing pigeons are relegated to a hardscrabble urban existence.
“Where are the dedicated sanctuaries for observing us?”
Local birds like the white-faced ibis do not agree with the proposed protest and say the pigeons should stay in the big cities where they belong and leave their refuge alone.
“These inelegant opportunists live off handouts from the very people they claim to oppose. They’re a menace and must be faced down immediately. Otherwise they just crap all over you.”
When I was 18, I got into a terrible battle with their grandparents in southern Michigan. A passel of them had organized and were stealing our national reserves of corn from rural silos. Recruited by a pig farmer west of Saline, I operated as a lone sniper, killing at least half a dozen in one afternoon. Those days were less politically correct. We ate their dead.
This trio looks like some of the guys down at the Coo-coos’ Nest on the 16th Street Bridge. They always be “coo coo this, coo coo that” and blinking in unison. Bird Brain Rising tells the story of one Pittsburgh pigeon’s rise from humble beginnings to that of superhero.