How do you distinguish between those “good” animals — native species — and the bad actors that stomp on the locals and conquer their turf? Animal rightists don’t like to make those distinctions, arguing that all animals deserve our respect. Just off the coast of California, there’s been a dispute about what to do on the Channel Islands, where seabirds called Xantus’ murrelets have been devastated by European rats 14 inches long. Most environmentalists want to bump off the rats, which have plundered so many nests that only 5,000 birds are left. But animal-rights activists told the Christian Science Monitor that they’re opposed, calling the poisoning “animal racism” in pursuit of Disneyfying the island for boaters. A bus driver from Santa Barbara, Rob Puddicombe, felt so strongly about rodent rights that he sailed an inflatable raft to the islands. Once there, he distributed vitamin K- enriched pellets to counteract poison set out by the Park Service. “I love underdogs, and rodents are the underdogs of the animal kingdom,” he explained. His misdemeanor trial begins in February, by which time all the rats should be dead, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Reputed to be among the best of the worst country-western song titles: “Please bypass this heart,” “I don’t know whether to kill myself or go bowling,” and “I’m so miserable without you, it’s like having you here.”

Photographers had a field day in Santa Clarita, Calif., when a local dentist got to the root of a patient’s pain by climbing a tree. John Quigley had taken up residence in the 400-year-old oak for 39 days to save it from a road-widening project. But Quigley made the mistake of biting down hard on an energy bar, thereby cracking the crown of a tooth. Hearing about Quigley’s painful problem on a Spanish-language radio station, Dr. Ana Michel climbed to the rescue. She told The Associated Press she’d been an accomplished tree-scrambler as a kid and didn’t fear making a house call 20 feet aboveground. Thanks to the plucky dentist, Quigley got a much-needed temporary crown. That allowed Quigley to remain in the tree, where he continued negotiating with the developer.

If you live in Phoenix, Ariz., and college football is not your meat, it must be annoying when Fiesta Bowl season arrives in December: This bowl overflows with hype. So it was with no little surprise that we happened on two examples of bah-humbug journalism concerning the tortilla chip-sponsored bowl. In the Scottsdale Tribune, columnist Paul Giblin had the audacity to suggest that a Fiesta Bowl media event attended by 1,200 members of the press was merely a “pseudo-drama.” The only tension at the press conference, he noted, came at lunch: Reporters employed excessive roughness as they stiff-armed their way to the buffet table. We expect alternative weeklies such as Get Out in Phoenix to go for the jugular, so the paper’s reprise of a college exam for football players was perhaps less daring. A sample question: “Give a dissertation on the ancient Babylonian Empire with particular reference to architecture, literature, law and social conditions, OR, give the first name of PIERRE Trudeau.” A tad harder was this question: “If you have an Ohio State football player and a University of Miami football player in the same car at the same time, who drives?” The answer: The state trooper.

Wouldn’t he walk? A campaign with the slogan “What would Jesus drive?” encourages churchgoers to think about fuel economy, reports the Washington Post. The Evangelical Environmental Network is buying cable TV and radio ads to get the message across. More newspapers are devoting a column to readers who want to sound off anonymously. The Salt Lake Tribune calls its reader-rant “The Vent,” and here’s a recent example: “It would make me worry too — a creepy religious group is going to clone people. They are going to look alike, probably all dress alike, probably drive the same vehicle. They’re probably going to do everything alike … . Hey, wait a minute; that’s Mesa!”

Utah better decide how to handle wolves once they’re flourishing in the Beehive State. Seventy years after trappers exterminated the predators, a few have already recalled that Utah is a tasty place to live. “Young wolves are looking for new loves and new life,” said Ed Bangs, the wolf-recovery manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Bangs was a trifle impatient with state Rep. Michael Styler, who told the Salt Lake Tribune that he wanted wolves kicked out of Utah. “We should take them back to where there is an adequate prey base,” Styler said. Bangs rejoined, “They are not aliens. They are part of Utah’s heritage.”

Westerners often store junk in their backyards — piles of stuff here, an old car there. Then, there’s mega-junk. In western Colorado’s Mesa County, Vernon Winder’s yard boasted two refrigerators, one tow truck, 20 tons of scrap iron, 51 tons of assorted refuse, and 85 tires, all piled on 9,000 square feet. The county had tried for six years to force a cleanup, but 10 court dates later, nothing had changed. Finally, reports the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the county enforced its land-use code to remove the junk, then billed the owner close to $10,000. Problem solved? Not really: A county commissioner says Winder has started to do the same thing again.

Betsy Marston is editor of Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News in Paonia, Colorado (betsym@hcn.org). Tips of Western doings are always appreciated.