I caught this story over at Twitchy.

It links to this story at the Daily Breeze: Taking aim: gophers in cross hairs at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Seems that a grounds keeper was shooting at gophers.  Given the look of the rifle in the pictures, it is my educated guess that it is a break action pellet gun.  The way the barrel flares out past the forend of the stock is the giveaway.

The legality of doing this in California is dubious, even with a pellet gun, so there might be some problems for the grounds keeper in the future.

Being associated with a Trump golf course, the internet had to opine.

Yes, yes, we get it.  Trump is evil, hunting is evil, Trump and his family must like killing innocent woodland critters because they are evil sadists.

Welcome to an understanding of nature and economics when all you have been exposed to is Disney movies.

According to the Daily Breeze article, Trump has invested over $250 million into that course.

Gophers and other burrowing animals can wreck a golf course.  Traditional methods of dealing with these types of animals is to bait and poison them.  That can be effective, but the most common gopher bait is Strychnine, which can cause secondary poisoning.  Repellents are less effective.

Let me tell you about prairie dogs in South Dakota.  They are a nuisance animal of the highest order.  A prairie dog town can ruin grazing land.  The dogs dig burrows.  If a cow puts a foot in a dog hole, it can break a leg.  Then you have to shoot the cow.

Prairie dogs also spread bubonic plague and other diseases.

So ranchers deal with the dogs by letting people shoot them.  No issues with laying poison to be eaten by other animals.

I’m not a hunter, I don’t like to do it, but I have no issue what-so-ever with shooting nuisance animals.  They spread disease and ruin property values.

Letting a grounds keeper end a gopher or ground squirrel with a .177 projectile at 1,000 fps is humane and economical.

Do these people really care if a Trump golf course loses revenue because it has a pest problem?

What if people had to get laid off because the reduced revenue?

What if a golfer twisted an ankle stepping in a gopher hole?

Nope, because shooting animals is bad and done by evil people.

What else would you expect from the same people who saw a video of disease infected vermin showing no fear of people and turned it into a folk hero?

Let Trump build a Golf Course in the South.  When we get invaded with giant nuisance animals, we deal with them with suppressed 22s.