Ain't Nothin' Wrong with a Snake Rodeo

Alabama is well outside the rustbelt but this article recounting environmentalists efforts to stop a snake rodeo in Opp, Alabama caught my attention. Basically a rodeo occurs when the bravest men alive, snake hunters, go into the woods around Opp and haul out a hundred or so Eastern diamondback rattlesnakes. They take the snakes to a festival in town, show them off and then eat them and make wallets and other trinkets out of them.

There are environmentalists who would like the practice to stop. These people are obviously operating at less than full mental capacity so we'll stop talking about them and their wacko position right now. I get the whole 'circle of life' thing but as a liberal who wouldn't harm a fly I have no problem with rounding up all the venomous things that slither and making boots out of them.

Ireland doesn't have any snakes and look how well that country gets along. You don't see the Irish clamoring for ill tempered reptiles with sharp fangs. No, they've learned to live without and life goes along nicely on the Emerald Isle.

As far as I'm concerned the hunters of Opp, Alabama and the other two dozen cities that hold these rodeos are doing the Lord's work. We should let them heed their calling.