I don't see eye to eye with a lot of people, sometimes my family falls into that category - and usually it's my mother. This past weekend she called me and asked if I was interested in visiting a ranch that her friends own. My brothers and parents were going, but I declined the offer, fishing and hunting and the other stuff they have going on there are not really hobbies of mine. I'd have just been bored out of my mind the entire time.

I got a phonecall from my mother earlier today and she informed me that I should've gone, because they were telling stories of an alligator near the water. A big 8-foot one. I was upset, maybe I should have gone after all.

"They shot it," she said.

"They WHAT? Was it attacking someone?" I said flustered.

"No it was just in the water but too close to everyone. So they shot it."

"You called me, a person whom you know full well is a zoophile - reptiles specifically, to tell me that I should have gone because your redneck friends shot an alligator? How in the hell could that have possibly been anything that would have interested me at all?" By now I was pretty pissed off, but things only got worse.

"They had to call the Parks & Wildlife to come out and help move it," she said. "When they took measurements and stuff they said it was a female. And they also found a nest with 41 eggs in it."

I actually set the phone down and didn't say anything for a moment as I let that sink in. My mother was nice enough to inform me that her spoiled well-to-do friends just put a fucking bullet in a mother alligator who was not being aggressive and was merely looking out for her offspring. They own a RANCH. Clearly a better solution would have been to just take whatever it was they had (probably fishing crap) and MOVE SOMEPLACE ELSE. But I digress, I don't think most people are capable of that higher brain capacity.

I was told that the Parks & Wildlife said the eggs would be fine, to which I asked my mother if she had seen any little alligators on her little trip. When she said no I said "that's because all 41 of them are DEAD". I don't think she quite understood that P&W may have been just saying what they said so nobody would feel guilty of, oh, killing 42 alligators with a single bullet. Unless someone specifically supervised and cared for each and every one of those eggs they would eventually all be picked off by predation. With no momma gator around to keep an eye out, their fate was sealed. Unfairly and for a moot reason too, I might add.

My mother had the audacity to try and justify their actions but I pointed out that so long as it wasn't hissing or moving it didn't pose a threat at all. Alligators don't prey on people, they usually stray away - even the big ones. Then again I don't expect her to know this because this is coming from someone who thought snakes were slimy, so whatever. "Defending property" is the reason I believe she gave. I said that owning land is arbitrary; you don't just open fire on animals who aren't threatening you - especially those who are simply out to defend their young. If she wanted to get into an argument about owning land I was ready to cite that alligators beat her stupid Foxworthy-toting friends to that land by a few million years.

She also wanted to go toe-to-toe with me saying that had I been there I wouldn't have known how to deal with an 8-foot alligator, saying that I've never handled one. Maybe it's just the excessive amounts of stupid she was exposed to on her trip, but I know for a fact I sure as fuck know a hell of a lot more about any given reptile, especially crocodilians and varanids, than anybody else in my immediate family. Had I been there, yes I would have known how to handle the situation because I likely would have pieced together she's probably defending her clutch. It's a simple fucking concept, you don't have to WRESTLE every alligator you see, you just respect their authority and move your ass.

I felt bad for the mother alligator, but most of all I felt really bad for the 41 hatchlings that likely never even had a chance at life. Some people will say "that's life" - but no, no it's not. In the wild there are no random blue collar people shooting things with rifles for no reason. This is clearly just a byproduct of average human idiocy and no, no thats not "just life" for the wildlife. It's a twisted version of life that throws the natural balance of power way off kilter.

Every so often the collective stupidity of the human race reminds me why I just can't seem to put up with "people". This is one of those times. I hate people.