Chippie: R.I.P.

Dear Neighbor,

Today, when you were busily squirting (what I presume was) weedkiller around your yard to kill off little stands of Public Enemy Number One (to the uninitiated, that would be “dandelions”), you also nailed a chipmunk.

It had been bouncing about, as chipmunks do, scurrying back and forth across the street all day.

After it ran right across the area you had just sprayed, it managed to stagger back across the street, had massive convulsions and died (after suffering horribly) a few moments later in our yard.

Yes, there are lots of chipmunks in this world. What’s one chipmunk?

Well, let’s see, it’s a mammal… like us humans… and reacts to poisons the way we do… and that should raise at least a little warning bell, don’t ya think?

I do.

Tonight, I for one am massively pissed off at everyone who feels that it’s fine to poison their yard “because it doesn’t harm anyone” and who says, regarding the use of pesticides, that “it’s my property so I can do what I want.”

Tell that to all the chemically injured who are harmed by the pesticides and other chemicals used around them. Tell that to the Gulf War vets, who were poisoned by pesticides. Tell that to all the women who have suffered breast cancer and second-hand infertility from pesticides (as well as from other chemical exposures). Tell that to the mutated amphibians, the reptiles and mammals, the birds and what seems like just about everything living that’s negatively impacted on one level or another by these chemicals–even if they aren’t killed outright.

Tell that to the chipmunk.

Oh, wait. You can’t. It’s dead.