Just about everywhere I travel these days

I spot gigantic new suburban subdivisions

Modern man craves the very best lifestyle

And to lovely water locales we seem driven

And if a bulldozed plot of urbanized land

Doesn’t contain a lovely little body of water

We soon build ourselves a fine artificial pond

And then we sit back and wait for the slaughter

We are now building our fine new homes in wetlands

And right along side very lovely lakes rivers and ponds

But we just can’t force ourselves to share these lovely things

So of residents who naturally live here we are no longer fond

We curse in modern day outrage when a tiny snake turtle or alligator

Wanders into a luxurious new swimming pool next to the Everglades

And we demand prompt deadly extermination when we happen to spot

A family of raccoons sipping a drink of water at ‘our pond’ in the shade

Most waterfowl like geese and ducks are by their very god-given nature

Attracted to all types of water upon which they live out their simple lives

Yet today in our modern and luxurious waterside condos and homes

Just the sight of a duck or a goose drives many into complete and utter strife

Many people I know these days have their favorite exterminators on ‘speed dial’

Modern day companies employee thousands to destroy duck and goose eggs

And as I sadly travel a landscape that I find more grotesque each and every day

I wonder how long it will be before Earth has only selfish creatures with two legs

©2007, Mr. Ed

Cities, towns, and subdivisions all across the land are already soliciting ‘good citizens’ to volunteer for ‘egg patrols.’

They are enlisting people of all ages to help locate nests of waterfowl eggs as part of an ever expanding national program aimed at eliminating populations of ‘smelly, water fouling, birds.’

And these very determined waterfowl hating volunteers are already diligently searching for goose and duck eggs in their modern day communities each and every spring.

These volunteers are also now being taught all about waterfowl habitat and life cycles; not because they love nature, but because they want to know the very best places to discover these ‘filthy’ eggs.

And once these horrendous bird eggs are discovered, ‘modern day professionals’ are now being dispatched to shake these eggs to destroy the embryos; to completely coat them with corn oil to suffocate the developing chicks; or to just smash the hell out of them.

"I can't stress enough, this is not an Easter Egg Hunt," said a very pompous president of one of the new companies now being formed to ‘take care of this terrible modern day problem.’

"This egg destruction is already a science.  If people think they can do this on their own, they can't.  They need professional egg busters."

Modern day officials have repeatedly tried to control waterfowl flocks and chase them away from their natural habitat by planting grasses less attractive to these birds all along lagoons, ponds, and riverbeds; by spraying digestive irritants and noxious chemicals on the grass they like to nest in; and by using specially trained dogs to drive these birds away.

But none of this has worked very well to rid our modern day society of these ‘terrible, filthy, water fouling, nuisances.’

So now, it has become a job for ‘Professional Egg Busters’ – yet another in a long line of new anti-wildlife modern day business concerns.

"It's much more humane than rounding up these birds and gassing them,” a professional egg buster recently proclaimed.

Yet, I can somehow already picture gigantic waterfowl gas chambers soon sprouting up from sea to polluted sea.

I really wonder just how selfish a modern day species we can possibly become.

I’ve also just posted a ‘Ducks and Geese Are Still Welcome Here’ sign at my little Walden’s Pond tucked away in the woods, and a huge, flashing, very brightly colored, ‘Egg Hunters Will Be Arrested For Trespassing’ sign.

I may even start my own ‘Anti-Egg Busting Society,’ but I probably won’t get too many members – not in these extremely sad and extremely selfish anti-wildlife days.

But I’d rather share my little pond with the ducks and geese.  Not one of them has ever tossed an empty beer can into it; but I very sadly can’t say that about many human beings who have visited it.

“Every creature is better alive than dead,

Men and moose and pine trees (and waterfowl),

And he who understands this,

Will rather fight to preserve life,

Than agree to destroy it.”

Henry David Thoreau