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DOW Nailed in Hibernation Conspiracy

(Gunnison) Rogue elements of the Colorado Division of Wildlife have been charged in connection with an alleged plot to drastically change animal behavior in the state. According to an ongoing investigation, several DOW officers have actively engaged in bullying, sleep deprivation techniques, antler boarding  and brainwashing in an attempt to convince deer and elk to hibernate or at least “make themselves scarce during the long winter months.

The unnamed suspects were reportedly put on work release with pay as of Friday.

Only last week officials within the squeaky clean organization stumbled across reeducation camps in San Juan and Ouray Counties and a large mass meeting site here, just north of town. Upon entering the camps DOW bosses expressed shock and dismay at radical methods employed such as forced tagging operations, constant bombardment by bad country music, harassment by aircraft and the separation of fawns from their mothers. The general living conditions were described as “deplorable”.

“They kept up the propaganda assault for the entire time we were there,” said Roxanne Rabbit, a high ranking official within the agency. “They tagged the entire herd and almost tagged me too and, to add insult to injury the animals were fed nothing but hay and water and were housed outside with no blankets with only small clusters of aspen trees for protection against the elements.”

Rumors circulating this camp suggest the employment of scare tactics such as the introduction of predators and broadcasts of weaponry discharging. The animals are in fragile shape according to another officer.

“While the concept of hibernation is not unlawful or immoral the deployment of such ruthless tactics shows a disdain for the beasts,” said the clearly shaken source.

Nothing in DOW regulations calls for, encourages or condones instructing mammals to abandon ancient instinctual patterns indigenous to a particular species.

“We don’t want the bear running around howling like coyotes or the badgers crashing skulls like Dahl sheep,” said Rabbit. “We have enough chaos in the forests with people all over the place without tainting our four-legged wards. I say leave them alone. Let the wolves be the wolves and the elk be the elk!”

As most readers already realize, fur-bearing animals hibernate during winter months while herd animals stay awake so as to eat sagebrush, be attacked by hungry mountain lions and run in front of vehicles during the colder months. 

“The deer and elk don’t need that much sleep and the entire program is a misuse of public funds,” said Rabbit. “One mounting concern has us focused on a shortage of caves. Where are they supposed to rut? What if they oversleep and miss the spring migration?”

Rabbit added that the deer and elk cannot possibly put on enough weight to subsist through the winter without a snack or two. 

“Even if they ate from non-stop from now until December they wouldn’t have much in reserve. They are far too hypersensitive and anxious,” she explained. “Sure, it might be a relief for us if we knew for sure that the deer and elk were fast asleep in their beds all winter but that just wouldn’t be natural. This whole seasonal progression was well entrenched before we took over. Before you know it these madmen  will be calling for trout to fly and eagles to play the flute.”

– Lawrence Elk

“I make used to make five bucks an hour working with emotionally disturbed children  while some other guy was knocking down three million for scooping up grounders and throwing them to first base.” – Melvin Toole, on the subject of baseball strikes and investment portfolios

       

Toole Defects to Bruins

(Ridgway) Astrodynamic editor Manfred “Waterworks” O’Toole, has fled the coop, apparently preferring the company of bears to that of his fellow humans. According to a note left on his computer earlier in the week the noted scribe had “had enough” and was going to the woods “in search of some answers”.

According to a longtime co-worker O’Toole always had a thing for bears.

“He used to feed them and liked to photograph them when they weren’t looking,” said Estelle Marmotbreath, a blind proofreader employed by the San Juan Tattoo and Tofu, a publication that included  O’Toole on its payroll roster. “Some of us thought it was odd that he lived on berries and apples and liked to bury his meat, sometimes for up to a month, before consumption.”

An accomplished caver, “O’Toole claims to have explored over 400 caves in Western Colorado and New Mexico. He had begun growing out his coat in 2015 seemingly protesting the use of rubber bullets and tagging of bruins. In 2017, when more and more bears were being destroyed for their garbage raiding incursions into local towns O’Toole became a virtual recluse, rarely venturing forth from his den, located between Elk Meadows and Lake Otonawanda on Miller Mesa.

“He clearly saw the bears as the good guys and the encroaching humans as the aggressors,” said Marmotbreath. “Some people may brand him a traitor to his species but most of us around here just think he’s loco.”

According to former reporters at the paper O’Toole has experienced short-term memory loss since 1965, often not recalling simple daily routines and unable to find his car or typewriter. Sometimes he even went out into the wilderness looking for bear when even a simpleton would know that they were in town eating garbage.

“One time he wrote a scourging piece accusing the DOW of murdering all of the bears only to realize that they were safely hibernating in their caves,” said a former reporter, turned beekeeper. “We were continually coming up short here at our operation and thought maybe O’Toole was swiping raw honey for his friends in the forest. Why else would he have developed such an intense interest in what we were doing? He was hanging around all the time, asking questions and taking notes.”

Although O’Toole has done nothing illegal he has been quickly ostracized from certain segments of society such as the hoity-toity Polar Bear Lodge and the Disappointment Valley Optimists Club, an organization that he founded in 1952.

“He doesn’t seem to give a damn about anything human,” said an old friend and naturalist Suzie Compost, who is contemplating spending next summer living with Japanese Snow Monkeys (Macaques) in the Kitami Mountains.

O’Toole, who put on some 100 pounds since August, will not be harmed by authorities unless he becomes a nuisance. 

Meanwhile local wildlife experts say that calculations “were a bit premature” regarding claims that well publicized bear diversion projects had been a rousing success so far this winter. 

“We didn’t account for the fact that the bear were engaged in serious hibernation and therefore were not coming to town like in the fall,” said several biologists.

– Fred Zeppelin