The other day I heard about an upcoming action that will be taking place soon in Central Indiana that just has to make one wonder what the heck are people thinking. Some residents of a subdivision near Indianapolis are apparently fed up with hearing bull frogs croak at night, so they have actually gone and hired a someone to hunt and spear the frogs!

Really? Poor babies…are you really so very special, that you can’t handle some frogs croaking at night? Geez, if that were the case where I live in Mid-Michigan, with all the ponds and wetlands situated here, these people who can’t handle a little nature in their backyard, would go bonkers in minutes. If it is not spring peepers and chorus frogs, it is the tree frogs that are croaking and calling. Personally, I love falling to sleep listening to them. What’s next, a cricket roundup to turn them into fish bait?

Why is it that we humans think we can just plop ourselves down wherever we want and then expect nature to bend to our every whim? I’d bet the bull frogs were there first. Hey folks, if you don’t want to deal with nature, then don’t move there in the first place!

Here in Mid-Michigan, we have a number of people who will move next to a protected wetland and then want to manage it like it’s a manicured golf course. That, or they will start using it as a dumping ground for mowed grass, leaves, and other yard debris. In the end, they damage and/or destroy the very thing that brought them there in the first place. They go and “pave paradise and put up a parking lot” so to speak.

Many of us need to learn how to relish the beauty of nature. Just give it a chance and I am fairly certain you will come to love it. If not, don’t move in next door and then try to alter it…find a more appropriate place to live. Meanwhile, the rest of us can still marvel at the natural wonders of our planet without you destroying it.

Here’s are the lyrics from a portion of the last verse from The Eagles song entitled, The Last Resort. The words do a good job of summing up the insanity of such actions:

“They call it paradise

I don’t know why

You call someplace paradise,

[and] Kiss it goodbye.”

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