When NewsSkunk called the EPA last April 1st and asked if the snipe was on the List of Endangered Species, it had no idea that the call would lead to an exhaustive, nationwide search for the fictitious but elusive animal.
Like Bigfoot, the snipe is an animal that many people claim to have seen, but few have photographed. A NewsSkunk source at the EPA says the agency meticulously tracked down hundreds of leads from Florida to Oregon but were unable to catch, let alone photograph, a single snipe. According to the source, EPA agents were perplexed how they could enter nearly any backwoods town in America, ask a local grocery clerk or bartender where they could find a snipe, and be given directions that never led to a single sighting.
One of the most disappointing leads occurred when an EPA investigator received dozens of reported sightings of a snipe chasing wild geese at a Boys Scout camp near Lake Liberalville. Agents spent a week-and-a-half chasing hundreds of geese but were unable to locate a single snipe.
Snipe hunting became an agency-wide obsession, with the EPA even visiting Indian reservations. At one reservation, they were told of an ancient tribe that still subsists on a steady diet of snipe. Investigators tracked down this tribe, which is rumored to catch snipe, strip them bare, and slow-cook them in large ceramic pots of steam. Agents visited the tribe in a remote area of Montana. The agents were initially dismayed when the chief told them that the younger generation had foregone snipe hunting in favor of hand-outs from the federal Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR). But then some sympathetic elderly tribal leaders told the EPA investigators that they had personally hunted snipe in their youth and that snipe in their backwoods were more likely to be plentiful than endangered. Although they were too infirmed now to hunt snipe themselves, they offered to train the EPA agents on snipe-hunting techniques passed down from generation to generation. The investigators gladly accepted. Soon the hunting party embarked, championed by an enthusiastic send-off by the tribe.
The elderly tribal leaders trained two teams: one to hunt down and safely capture snipe, another to travel to nearby hot springs to fill ceramic clay pots full of steam. The chief promised the members of the twenty-strong search party that if they brought back enough snipe and steam, the tribe would hold a feast in their honor – kind of like a Thanksgiving with snipe in place of turkey. When the search team returned empty-handed, the Indians threw a party anyway, a party so entertaining that the tribal leader promised the investigators that the story of The White Man Snipe Hunt would be passed on from generation to generation. The feast featured every type of local game – except snipe. And Coca-Cola bought through FDPIR.
After many months of fruitless nationwide snipe searching, the EPA decided to gather all their field agents in Washington, D.C., but reconsidered and moved the meeting to Las Vegas. The meeting was attended by top management, analysts, agents, researchers, investigators, and others, including a covert NewsSkunk contributor. The team provided reports, displayed colorful charts, offered analysis, debated theories. By the end of the day, the team reached consensus explaining why they were unable to locate any snipe: Climate Change.
Look for the snipe to be added to the Endangered Species list sometime next year.
