ONE OF THE GOOD THINGS OUR GOVERNMENT IS SPENDING MONEY ON
                          by Dave Barry

We taxpayers hear too many stories about the stupid things that the
federal government does with our money, such as letting Congress get
hold of it, or attempting to orbit billion-dollar high-tech satellites
that are supposed to spy on the Union of Fewer and Fewer Soviet
Socialist Republics, but that immediately become lost, or crash into
Connecticut. As taxpayers, we think, "What a waste of money! Why not
attempt to orbit, say, a 1968 Plymouth Valiant, which would be far
cheaper, yet just as effective militarily?"

Well, I for one am sick of this carping. Which is why today I want to
talk about one of the GOOD things our government is spending money on,
namely the U.S. Interior Department program that encourages hunters to
send waterfowl parts through the mail. I am not making this program up.
I got wind of it thanks to Dustin Basham, an alert reader and duck
hunter from Tallahassee, Fla., who sent me a large brown envelope he
received from the Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service.  It's
a postage-paid envelope, addressed to COOPERATIVE WATERFOWL PARTS
COLLECTION. On the back it says:

"WATERFOWL HUNTERS -- We need a wing from each DUCK, BRANT, or COOT
(including sea coots) and the tail feathers from each GOOSE you kill
this season."

This is followed by instructions as to how the hunter is supposed to cut
off the wing and mail it in ("make certain blood has drained and
dried").

I imagine that, as a taxpayer, you have some questions at this point,
such as: Was the Fish and Wildlife Service abused as a child? And what
the heck is a "brant"?

According to the dictionary, a "brant" is a kind of goose. A "coot" is
either a duck-like bird or a cranky older person, although I think we
can safely assume that the Fish and Wildlife Service is not asking
hunters to send severed senior-citizen parts through the U.S.  mails.
That would fall under another department.

Anyway, the reason the Fish and Wildlife Service wants hunters to mail
in waterfowl appendages, according to the envelope, is that these can be
used to determine "the ratio of old to young birds," which reveals "how
good a crop was produced." I have no quarrel with this.  Any legal
scholar will tell you that one of the first federal responsibilities
mentioned in the U.S. Constitution is the monitoring of the coot crop.

But what I want to know is: Shouldn't the government also be monitoring
the moose crop? I mention this in light of an Anchorage Daily News
article alertly mailed in by Steve Bourch. The article, by Charles
Wohlforth, is headlined MOOSE BATTERS COUPLE. I am still not making any
of this up. It concerns Paula and John Dede of Wasilla, Alaska, who had
seen this moose hanging around their house, but it went away, so they
decided to go into their back yard with their two prized chow show dogs,
one of which "wears a jacket because a thyroid condition has made her
bald." So they went outside, and suddenly, the moose barged out of the
woods and attacked them.

"I never expected it from this moose," the article quotes Mrs. Dede as
saying.

A tremendous battle ensued. At one point, the moose and the people and
the dogs all got tangled up in the dogs' tether. At another point,
according to Mrs. Dede, "John was lying on the ground and the moose was
standing on his back." When it was all over, both Dedes had been taken
to the hospital, the moose had been fatally shot by a state trooper, and
both chows had become very upset.

I don't know about you, but I am shocked by this story. I mean, as
Americans we are raised to believe that moose attacks involving show
dogs with thyroid problems happen only in the Third World, and here we
discover it's going on right in our own back yard, assuming we live in
Wasilla, Alaska. As taxpayers, we need to ask ourselves some hard
questions, such as: Is the moose crop perhaps getting too big for its
britches? What is the government doing about it? Is there a special show
category for bald dogs?

Clearly, the only practical solution here is a massive expansion of the
Cooperative Waterfowl Parts Collection program. I am urging hunters, dog
owners and all other concerned citizens to gather up your moose parts
and mail them pronto to the Interior Department, or your congressperson,
or (why not?) the Publishers Clearing House. I have checked with the
postal authorities on this, and I am pleased to report that their line
was busy.