I first saw this story on the Guardian’s American edition site and have seen it elsewhere. It really is a serious matter, but I can’t help feeling a sort of perverse macabre humor about it. US Fish and Wildife will be using drones to scatter vaccine-covered M&Ms over areas of Montana inhabited by Prairie dogs. Prairie dogs are the favored meals of the critically endangered Black footed ferret, so the rodents’ weakness for the candy will posthumously inoculate the ferrets.
A disease called Sylvatic plague is fatal to both species. An oral vaccine has been developed and this is what the candies will be laced with. There are only about 300 of the ferrets left, so this really is important to their survival.
Meanwhile, one wonders who discovered that Prairie dogs have a weakness for M&Ms? A lost pollster at a road stop picnic table? The Easter Bunny cowboy? Ranchers lacing candies with poisons?
There will of course be a right-wing take on this. I visualize the headlines on sites that shall not be named as “Obama Orders Drug-Laced Candy Dropped on Boy and Girl Scouts.”
Alas I have not mastered the art of providing a link, but google “drones dropping M&Ms over Montana” and you’ll find the story. I also have not figured out how to do picture credits: the image is from Wikipedia Commons and is in the public domain.