You couldn't make it up dept. no.65: Bugs Bunny lives!

[fpb]

Yesterday, Milan's second airport, Linate, was closed for hours due to an infestation of hares. The animals had to be caught alive and removed to a neighbouring sanctuary. That paralyzed half the air traffic of Italy's leading economic and financial centre. Interesting sense of priorities.

Comments

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

Cuteness is a big factor in people's becoming excessively protective of species that are in fact vermin in their current environment. In Chicago and its suburbs, whitetail deer are becoming a nuisance species -- destroying landscaping vegitation, walking onto roads and causing wrecks (often fatal to the passengers of small cars) etc. However, every attempt to reduce the population by hunting leads to wails of "killing Bambi's mother."

By contrast, very few people go all big-emo over an attempt to reduce the population of ugly or unpleasant creatures like rattlesnakes or alligators.