800-POUND HUNTERS

Chronic Wasting Disease continues to turn up in deer in new states, the latest being Utah, along with more in New Mexico (which I hadn't mentioned previously). Even as states try to eradicate the deer, hunters are wearying of all the complications and numbers are dwindling - to the point that a Washington Times columnist laments that the future could be bleak for hunters. Gee, let's hope so. At least this dude admits the real reason hunting continues to get preferential treatment from the US government in its various game-commission guises: "In the money department, the hunting community is the 800-pound gorilla in a pen full of squirrel monkeys." Other than the insult to gorillas' intelligence - I don't see them practicing a beer-soaked "sport" that depends on senseless slaughter - that analogy sounds just right.