Kennewick's Odd Export: Coyotes and Badgers
While one club captures a coyote mascot, local entrepreneurs find a thriving market shipping live badgers to pet owners.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The badger industry really hasn't anything on the coyote business. As a result of a raid on a den in the Olmsted addition the latter part of the week, the Coyote club has a sure-enough mascot which is but one member out of a mixed quartet captured. It may be that the badger will now be featured as one of Kennewick's products but business in this line seems to be picking up. Within the last two weeks, three badgers have been shipped out via Northern Express to people who desire the little-devils-that-dig-holes for pets.
“Within the last two weeks, three badgers have been shipped out via Northern Express to people who desire the little-devils-that-dig-holes for pets.”
The historic desire to domesticate native 'pest' animals like badgers highlights the early twentieth-century settler disconnect from the local ecology. Today, this reads as an eccentric artifact of a time when the region's wildlife was treated as a novel commodity.
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