Opossum Drop bill shows how low NC can go

[n2doc]

Over the past few weeks, in a stunning display of legislative efficiency and bipartisanship that Washington lawmakers can only dream of, both houses of the N.C. General Assembly worked together to rush through what was apparently the most pressing issue of this legislative session: the legalization of cruelty to opossums.

Now, opossums in Clay County can be abused between Dec. 26 and Jan. 2, for the sole purpose of allowing Opossum Drop organizers to dangle a terrified opossum above a crowd of rowdy revelers each New Year’s Eve, something prohibited under law and for good reason. It is inappropriate to torment wildlife for fun.

Opossum Drop event sponsor Roger West proposed the legislation just as PETA’s latest legal challenge to using a live opossum at the event was heating up. In an admission that the Opossum Drop always has been illegal, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission ran to the legislature to help it avoid doing the right thing. Enter HB 1131, which legalizes cruelty to North Carolina’s official state marsupial, as long as it takes place in Clay County during the week of New Year’s Eve.

Meanwhile, wildlife rehabilitators who toil night and day to feed, medicate and care for injured, ill or orphaned wild opossums are still subject to the same laws that North Carolina’s lawmakers decided shouldn’t apply when you lock a timid opossum in a box and force him or her to endure a barrage of screaming celebrants, thumping music and deafening fireworks – in other words, all the things that frighten opossums most.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/06/16/3941556/opossum-drop-bill-shows-how-low.html