Group aims to reintroduce Jaguars to Argentina

[Dougie]

Redpossum how do you know all this stuff? Lol

Any random subject you could write 5 paragraphs on.

 

[Redpossum]

Redpossum how do you know all this stuff? Lol

Any random subject you could write 5 paragraphs on.

No, trust me, there are a very great number of subjects on which I am truly bone ignorant.

I know about this business because I was born into an Old California family, as in pre-Gold Rush, with a strong tradition of hunting, fishing, shooting, and general outdoorsmanship. I was active in the shooting sports for many years. I even reloaded my own ammo for a couple decades. (Now that's a complicated subject, with a strong potential for severe consequences if you mess it up.) I was a member and volunteer rangemaster at the SD County Fish & Game Association, (not to be confused with the state dep't of Fish & Game that I mention above), where my father and grandfather had also been members in their day.

When I was a boy in the 1960's, the total population of SD County was only barely 1 million. When I left it was 3.3 million
There's a historical chart here
If you look at the growth rate figures in green on the right, you can see it was horrendous. Mission Valley, that was pastures and dairies when I was a boy, is solid condos, and shopping malls now. They took the most fertile land in the whole *(^*%$&* county and covered it in concrete and asphalt. The hills where I played and rode in the 1960's have been bulldozed flat and covered in cheesy tract homes.

It's happened all over California, but this was my home, the place where my mother and I were born, (4 generations before that were from Northern California and the Bay Area), the county where we had lived since 1931, when San Diego was just a wide spot in the road. To those from greener climes, it was a dusty dry semi-desert, but to me it was the most beautiful place on earth, and they raped, ransacked, and pillaged it.

And it breaks my heart in a million pieces.