Apparently so, since the father says of the Oregon State Police, "Everything they done here was unlegal."

My favorite bit was this delightfully unapologetic statement: "We're hicks. We're mountain men," Perkett says. "We took her because she was dying and we loved her."

The ODFW obviously doesn't have enough to do. Maybe they should go back to clubbing salmon to death.

Ohmygod..I love that story...I got all misty and then for some unknown reason I began to hum the tune from Deliverance.

"The only thing we did wrong was love one another," he says.

Use that defense. It worked for Michael Jackson.

And the only rights Windfall has is her right to "bear arms". Sorry. It was just too good to resist.

At this rate, every logical concept which earns itself its own noun will eventually be possessed of "Rights." I'm not griping about women's rights or gay rights, since they both apply only to human beings, as *human* rights.

But if bears have rights, who has standing to protect and enforce them? And if bears do, then mice (our fellow mammals) must as well. Imagine the lawsuits spawned by fish, bears, mice or whatever: "Forty Three Billion, Seven Hundred Ninety Million, Four Hundred Thirteen Thousand, Six Hundred and Eleven Fecal Coliform Bacteria, Plaintiffs, V. The City of New York Sanitation Department, Defendant", arising from the routine use of chlorine to sanitize drinking water. Or ponder the legal significance of "Approximately Seven Hundred Million Sperm Cells, Plaintiffs, V. One Pair of Overly Tight Jockey Shorts, Defendant".

Or maybe I'm taking this "Bear's Rights" concept a little too seriously. As a lawyer, I suppose I should be excited by this new class of potential clients.