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Politics : BuSab -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carolyn who wrote (13757)	7/22/2012 4:49:33 PM
From: SmoothSail	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23934

Here's a story for you about Catalina (since you came to visit me over there). The island is owned by the William Wrigley Conservancy, with the exception of the city of Avalon. They hired one of those tree-hugging environmentalists to manage Wrigley's wishes as set down in his will. Wrigley wanted to preserve the island in its native form and not allow the creep of civilization. Well, this jerk interpreted that to mean that only native plants and animals should be allowed. Way back a couple of centuries ago, deer, goats, foxes and boar managed to make their way to the island. Sometime in the 20s, a movie company imported buffalo for a movie and left them there. Naturally the herd grew. This idiot decided that none of those animals could possibly be native and spent first $39K to hire sharpshooters to kill the goats and deer from a helicopter - foxes and boars too if they could find them. They just left the carcasses where they were shot. Hundreds were killed. This produced a swarm of flesh-eating wasps that invaded the town after they ran out of dead bodies. The town had to hire additional staff at their small hospital to treat people for wasp bites and anaphylactic shock. The wasps were everywhere. There was such an uproar that he was going to kill the buffalo, which Catalina is known for, that he found someone in Montana to take them. Then he had to spend an additional $30K to get rid of the wasps. A couple of years passed and the native plants grew wild because there were no more animals to eat them. Another decision he made was to remove the radio tower, which sat atop of one the the higher peaks - because it was an eyesore and the island should be in its native form without the creep of civilization. The tool the workman was using threw off sparks which landed in some of the overgrown brush and caught fire. The fire burned right up to Avalon. Only one house burned. The one belonging to the jerk running the conservancy who killed all the animals. One strange sidenote I found on Wiki: On February 4, 2009, Gary Dennis Hunt, 51, of Indiana pleaded no contest in Long Beach Superior Court to a charge of recklessly starting a brush fire in relation to the wildfire. Hunt agreed to pay at least $5 million in restitution, but the full amount he will pay would be decided at a later hearing. Sentencing was set for May 28, 2009 where he was expected to be sentenced to three years imprisonment Don't know the story behind that.