Yea Verily, Stupidity Has Descended Upon Blighty: The Blackberry Picking Prohibition

File under, Just can't possibly make this nonsense up. Gubbermint Workers just keep getting stupider faster than Normal People can keep up with.

Alan Gibson, 47, who organises "foraging picnics" to collect wild fruit and nuts, says he was ordered to stop by officials because it was bad for the environment.

When he questioned further, he said he was told that the activity posed a risk to newts.

As well as blackberries, he was told hazelnuts, apples and chestnuts were also out of bounds.

Mr Gibson, who writes an internet blog on collecting wild food, was organising a “foraging picnic” on Southampton Common as part of an autumn harvest festival event.

Staff at the council-run Hawthorns Urban Wildlife Centre told him that blackberry picking was prohibited because the common was a Site of Special Scientific Interest and home to endangered great crested newts.

Well, really, no, that's not the reason at all...but you still can't pick blackberries, 'cuz we say so, and we're duh gubbermint.

Hawthorns centre staff later admitted that was not the case, but Mr Gibson says a manager insisted the blackberry picking ban stood.

He has now launched a case against the “ludicrous” advice to establish blackberry pickers’ rights at Southampton’s ancient people’s court, the Court Leet.

The court, established hundreds of years ago, has no power to punish but now exists as a forum for grievances which are passed on to the council for a formal response and decision.

Mr Gibson said: “It came as a shock to me and my family and I think it would to most people. Picking fruit is a healthy, child-friendly activity.”

A council spokesman said “large scale blackberry or nut collecting would be inappropriate” as it might damage plants or habitats protected by wildlife legislation.

In the States, hunting regulations in many states are now so detailed as to make it nearly impossible to harvest game, lest a regulation be violated. And, in many instances, if caught in violation, the hunter loses his license, his gun, his vehicle--on the spot--and then has a court date set for his prosecution. The roads here are littered with deer carcasses every fall, because there aren't enough hunters. Mr. and Mrs. OS were nearly killed two years ago by a nine-point buck that would have normally been harvested and turned into venison for some family's freezer. Instead, he was harvested by the family Volvo.

There are some 47 million mourning doves flying around the country. They live perhaps two years. Hunting is down, and perhaps two million are harvested. The other 45 million simply die of natural causes. They're damned hard to shoot, by the way
.
The hunting regs are endless, protecting a species that everyone admits is never in danger of becoming scarce. Rather than lose the family pickup to the game warden, hunters just stay home. We're overrun with them. Same with Canada geese, by the way, endangering commercial aviation. Turkey are becoming a nuisance, raiding cattle feeders.

It's time, long overdue, to send these clowns on their way, and let us get back to blackberry picking, hunting, fishing...living.