Urtak composed the above chart of reader opinion by state and determined that "72% of Dish readers agree that taking on a BFD [big fucking duck] is a dumb idea! More than 1000 people answered the question." We will provide a final tally soon, along with more reader thoughts. Meanwhile, Conor Friedersdorf gets John Eadie, who "chairs the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology at the University of California, Davis, where his areas of expertise include avian ecology and waterfowl" to weigh on in the duck/horse question. Why Eadie suspects Obama would choose the horse-sized duck:
After engaging his graduate students in conversation, he came to realize that it would be politically disastrous for President Obama to fight the duck-sized horses. Think about it. In America, the duck lobby is composed of duck hunters. The horse lobby is made up of horse lovers who succeeded in stopping Californians from buying horse meat. The young women voters essential to the Democratic coalition are far more sympathetic to veritable ponies than a giant, rape-obsessed mallard. Shooting the duck would be perfectly legal under existing law, or would at worst result in a citation for hunting without a license.
But killing the duck-sized horses?
"If Obama killed just one of the hundred 'dorses', he would be subject to legal action and huge fines under existing federal law (e.g. The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, the animal welfare act and, based on a recent case, even the National Environmental Policy Act)," Eadie points out.
A reader writes:
It's worth noting that your readers aren't answering the actual question: Would Obama rather fight the 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck. The obvious answer is that Obama would farm this out to the drone program, where it clearly makes more sense to use one drone to kill the larger horse-sized ducks than deal with the problems presented by multiple smaller targets.
The logical follow-up question then becomes "Has this happened yet?" Frankly, the accountability mechanisms are either not in place or not adhered to for us to know.
Earlier reader thoughts here.
The Dish 