With human beings confined to their domiciles, animals are
once again taking over. And even takin’ it to the streets as the Doobie
Brothers might say. Recently, an Instagram video showed an alligator
sauntering around the Barefoot Landing shopping center in Myrtle Beach,
South Carolina. The following day, the Folly Beach (S.C.) Public Safety
department fielded complaints of a different alligator chilling on the beach.
The police called the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, which
told the officers not to worry about it, and to let nature take its course.
This advice was not folly, as there are no humans on the beach anymore,
anyway.
Reports
are coming in from around the country—and the world—of animals turning up in
parks, on beaches, and even on streets and parking lots, places normally
reserved for homo sapiens. Coyotes have been observed prowling the now nearly
empty streets of San Francisco, geese have been loitering around Las Vegas
Boulevard (Note to Noah: geese? Really?), and rats have overtaken the French
Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana. I have personally witnessed flocks of gulls
squatting in shopping center parking lots and turkeys taking our roads less
traveled. Video from Thailand exists online of monkeys brawling in the streets,
as do shots of a puma strolling down a sidewalk, in Santiago, Chile.
This is
a kind of reverse Genesis, with the animals going forth and multiplying, and taking
dominion over the earth, as people are instructed to stay inside and timidly mind
their own business.
It is
in keeping with the bizarre nature of these times, as folks around the planet
are losing their religion, their minds…and, apparently, their place at the head
of the animal kingdom.
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