Trump administration to block wolves crossing northern border...

By Jim Heffernan

Here’s all the fake news that’s unfit to print… 

The Trump administration yesterday said it will act to remove federal endangered species protection for gray wolves across the lower 48 states, once again opening up the debate over how many, if any, wolves should be killed by hunters and trappers. 

A spokesman for the Loyal Order of the Moose endorsed the executive action.

In announcing the move, President Donald J. Trump said most wolves cross the border from Canada. “This must stop immediately,” Trump said in an impromptu press conference on the White House lawn, “or I will declare a national wolf migration emergency.” 

It was unclear if the president could declare a national emergency on the border with Canada under executive powers without congressional authorization. Furthermore, he said that unlike the southern border with Mexico, no wall is envisioned, but rather a prison-style chain link fence would “do the trick, and Canada will pay for it.”

Trump further announced that if “corrupt” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does not act, he will mobilize American military forces along the border “in places like Frostbite Falls, Minnesota.” It was later pointed out he meant to say International Falls, although the mercurial chief executive is not fond of anything international or familiar with the mercury falling below freezing levels.  Frostbite Falls was the fictional setting of the television cartoon “Rocky and Bullwinkle” which aired when the president was a youngster.

He left the door open to a summit meeting with Trudeau to resolve the wolf crisis. A White House spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said such a meeting could be held atop North America’s tallest mountain in Alaska, Denali, known also as Mount McKinley to many conservatives. “That would be the world’s first true summit,” the source said, “a summit summit.”

In the wide-ranging Rose Garden session, Trump also said he would be fulfilling 2016 campaign promises to hunters and trappers who are eager to kill as many wolves as possible to enhance bragging rights. “They tell me many of the wolves disguise themselves as sheep to gain access to American soil. This has got to stop,” the president said.

Moving on to other topics, Trump said he feels very good about his recent Hanoi summit with “Kim Jong Novak.” An aide later pointed out the president meant Kim Jong Un and not the former Hollywood actress who shares a first name with the North Korean dictator. “Kim is actually the first name of everybody in North Korea,” the aide stated, unequivocally. Kim Novak was popular in the Rocky and Bullwinkle era.

Democrats who do not favor lifting the protections for wolves pointed out that recently in Estonia construction workers saved a wolf from drowning, thinking they were rescuing a dog trapped in an icy river. It wasn’t until later when one of the workers remarked, “What a long nose you have” that the wolf fessed up. It recalled “Little RED Riding Hood,” a fable popular in Estonia during the Soviet era. The wolf was later released to the wild in hopes it would cross the border into Latvia or Lithuania. 

Meanwhile, wolf experts at the International Wolf Center in Ely Minnesota (down the road from the Ely Bear Center and not far from the Root Beer Lady World Headquarters) indicated they were “howling mad” at the development.

Film at 10.

Some endangered species: Save the moose, wolves, bats, bees and save the USA

By Jim Heffernan

Here’s a potpourri of bad news from the past few months…

1. Our moose are dying off. Nobody seems to know why. I hope they can save the species, although it doesn’t affect me much. I don’t hunt – moose or anything else, and I don’t belong to the fraternal order. But what’s not to like about moose? They’re homely, so most of us can consider ourselves better looking. They seem nobler than I seem. A male moose with those big antlers, standing, say, by a north woods lake, looks noble. We need more nobility in our lives these days. I hope they can save the moose.

2. The wolves are dying off on Isle Royale. Nobody seems to know why. I hope they can save the species although it doesn’t affect me much. And so on and so forth (see moose above, sans antlers). 

3. Our bats are dying off. Yup. Nobody seems to know why. I hope they can save the species, although… well, you know. Nothing noble about bats that I can tell, except when depicted as the Dark Knight rising. On summer nights when they fly around your head, I still worry that they’ll get entangled in my hair, although that is a myth, they say, and my hair itself is an endangered species. Oh, also, I read the other day bats are coming down with something called “white nose disease.” Never heard of it. I’ve heard of brown nose disease, though, and it’s not pretty. I’ve had it.

4. Our bees are dying off. Nobody seems to know why. All of the above where it applies, plus, I like honey. Save the bees, honey.

5. The United States government dying off. Much of it, at this writing, is not functioning because Congress can’t agree to fund it. Then there is a danger Congress will refuse to authorize payment of the nation’s debt for the first time since the Washington administration. I admit that so far it doesn’t affect me much, but, still, I like the United States of America and hate to see it endangered. I hope they can save it, along with the moose, the wolves the bats and the bees.