Talking with D the other day, she asked if I had noticed “the bunny article” in the New York Times, and it took me a minute to figure what she meant, but then I remembered. I had, in fact, seen the bunny article, or rather glanced at it but not really absorbed it, and I admitted as much.

Basically, the article is ostensibly about doing battle with garden pests, except that it focuses more specifically on the pests of the upper classes, New Yorkers with second homes and so forth, rather than the garden pests of people who, you know, actually garden for food. To eat. Now, we all know that I’m a class snob, so I have a rough time mustering up that much pity for poor little rich people, but class issues aside, when I started delving more deeply into the article, I found myself pretty disgusted.

Garden pests happen, and it is really annoying. My father is constantly doing battle with the birds, deer, bunnies, and gophers in his garden, and he uses a variety of techniques to keep them at bay, including wiring, gopher traps, and a little pellet gun which he uses to scare the deer off. It’s frustrating to have one’s garden invaded and ruthlessly destroyed, especially when the animals don’t even bother to eat it, so I do sympathize with the complaints in the article. And I’ve even done my fair murdering of garden/farm pests, like raccoons which attacked our chickens, and gophers which devastated our garden. There are few things in this world as depressing as walking into the garden to pick snow peas and seeing the plants yanked, one by one, into the ground by greedy gophers, who seem to wait until the peas are at their peak before they strike.

The thing is, I don’t agree with the way the people the article profiled chose to handle their pest problem. Drowning? Bashing their heads in with hammers? Have these people not heard of humane pest management? Worse, the article seemed almost to be celebrating the ruthless attitude of these people (some of whom asked not be named, which suggests that they are aware that their activities are, you know, not really acceptable). People even talk about the “spiritual journey” involved in cruelly killing their garden pests, as though drowning squirrels in lotus position makes it better, somehow. Indeed, it seemed almost as though the article was designed to soothe the aching consciences of those who kill perfectly harmless and sometimes beneficial animals because they’re bothered by them. The whole article is like an orgy of death, with a final one-off briefly discussing more humane pest management techniques.

Look. I have no problem with killing garden pests. But I think that it should be done quickly, humanely, and with minimal impact to the environment. And, as many of the 325 comments posted before they closed comments pointed out, when you colonize former rural areas with disgusting suburbs, you shouldn’t be too surprised when animals move in on your garden. And you shouldn’t be killing things like snakes, which are beneficial for the garden, or birds, which are also beneficial. Furthermore, tormenting animals to death is seriously sick; and I don’t mean this in the “oh, not the cute little animals” way, but in the “serial killers always start with torturing animals*” way.

The comments section associated with the article exploded, with everything from ghoulish stories to shrill condemnations, but some of the middle ground comments were really interesting. For example, a woman mentioned that she had a serious bunny problem, so she planted clover around her garden. The bunnies ate the clover, and left the garden alone, and everyone was happy. I thought that was an interesting and humane approach to the problem which showed a spark of innovation and a desire to live more harmoniously with nature. Another commenter said she just planted a few extra things each year to accommodate for pest-related losses, which I think is a reasonable approach for a kitchen garden.

As many of the comments pointed out, it’s kind of funny to hear people with second homes bitching about the problems they have, and it’s even funnier when those second homes are in nature, but the owners want a sanitized version of nature. The truth about nature is that it fills a vacuum, whether it’s a vanity garden planted in a second home, or an empty lot in the city. I suspect that some of these people secretly bear their pest battles as a badge of authenticity; they’re so in touch with nature, they’ve even killed it! And, in one instance, taken the brave “spiritual” step of eating it! They’re so in touch with nature, America’s family farmers should just turn in their union cards now.

One of the more idiotic problems with the article didn’t become apparent until D pointed it out to me; the rabbit used in the header photo is a domestic rabbit. As in, a pet. Several of the comments also brought this issue up, somewhat more stridently than they really needed to, since the article certainly didn’t promote cruelty to house rabbits, or anything, but the point is that the Times didn’t even take the time to use a more appropriate graphic, like, say, a deer. Or an actual wild rabbit. Or a squirrel, or…something. I also note that the original title of the article was “Peter Rabbit Must Die,” and it magically changed to “Garden Vigilantes,” setting a very different tone than the first version.

Fascinating, I tell you! Simply fascinating.

*”In fact, the American Psychiatric Association considers animal cruelty one of the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder.” (HSUS First Strike)

(Henry Makepeace will be returning next week.)