Of Dead Bats and Drug Dealers

I have noticed a remarkable number of dead bats hanging from electricity lines lately. Seriously, on Saturday during the course of a single bus trip I saw no fewer than three dead bats hanging artistically from the overhead wires. One of them was right outside my home. It inspired me to do a little song and dance while waiting for the bus. Let me tell you you look a little silly when a group of sixteen year old girls walk by and catch you doing the dead bat dance. Bats are under fire a little in my city at the moment and I can't help wondering if they have started throwing themselves at powerlines in a form of suicide protest. Buddhist self immolation, bat style. There was an article in the paper recently that Sydney's Royal Botanical Garden wants to rid itself of its burgeoning bat population by means of noise dispersal.

Apparently the flying rodents are causing immense amounts of damage to the varied plant life that hangs out in the gardens and the administrators are running out of ideas on what to do about it. Unfortunately for them the bats are rare, or endangered or cute or one of the other reasons which make the human race periodically decide to not kill a particular animal. This means that the garden needs approval from the federal Environment Minister before it can undertake gruesome retribution. Amusingly this means the Minister will have to approve an assault on a rare (or endangered or cute) indigenous species so that a bunch of exotics imported from other lands can survive in their place. Meanwhile the bats are apparently trying to highlight their plight by hurling themselves into power lines.

Something else I frequently see hanging from power lines is pairs of sneakers. Friends of mine a little closer to the pulse of the city inform me that this is an indication that a drug dealer lives on the street. Firstly, if we had that many drug dealers I very much doubt that they could all remain in business. Secondly, how exactly is that supposed to help anybody? Do junkies wander the suburbs looking for dangling sneakers then doorknock every house in the street until they find a dealer? How does that conversation go?

"Excuse me, are you a drug dealer?"
"No."
"Sorry to bother you."

What happens if they get to the end of the street without finding one. Is there somebody they can complain to?

"Dear sir, I wish to protest in the strongest possible terms about the deceptive placing of sneakers on powerlines..."

Personally I suspect that sneakers dangling from a power line indicate that somebody pinched their neighbour's sneakers. If La Familia really have resorted to this form of viral marketing possibly the war on drugs is closer to being won than we thought. Or possibly not, the sheer volume of sneakers would indicate that business is booming. In some places there are so many sneakers there isn't any room for bats. Once again our little cruiser of the night, without whom a thousand vampire films would have had to make do with pigeons painted black, is being driven out by promoters of foreign vegetation.