[WARNING! This is another piece of satire–this time by the Onion. There were never any giant one-celled creatures (except on Star Trek), but if there were you can bet that humans would have hunted them to extinction…]

Illustration for article titled Fossil Records Indicate Early Humans Hunted 25-Foot Giant Paramecium And Other Mega-Protista To Extinction

SPOKANE, WA—Confirming long-held suspicions about the diminutive size of modern-day bacteria, paleontologists at Gonzaga University engaged in an intensive study of the fossil record announced Friday that they had found overwhelming evidence supporting the theory that early humans hunted the 25-foot paramecium and other mega-Protista to extinction. “According to our findings, early humans would routinely hunt giant amoeba, feasting on their cytoplasm and utilizing all organelle parts in the making of tools and garments,” said head researcher Dr. Lorraine Logan, clarifying that the building-sized bacteria had no natural predators, rendering them easy targets for early man armed with rudimentary flint hunting weapons. “My team uncovered the fossilized remains of a masta-paramecium whose cell wall had been pierced with almost two dozen arrows and whose Golgi apparatus had been painstakingly removed with obsidian knives, presumably to fashion into rope and bowstrings. We can also say with some certainty that early man harvested the mega-Protista’s cilia, which grew to impressive lengths in their prehistoric form.” Researchers also found a fossilized paramecium containing fragments of human bone, suggesting that the single-huge-celled organisms regularly fought back.

Impossible Burger Approved To Be Sold In Stores

Today 3:20pm

After receiving regulatory approval from the FDA, the plant-based Impossible Burger has been approved to be sold in supermarkets nationwide, offering an option for environmentally conscious consumers looking for a burger substitute. What do you think?

“It’s like we’re living in the future: an agency that approves the safety of food!”

ARUN TUCKER • TONTINE ARRANGER

“This is pointless until someone invents a vegetarian bun.”

SABRINA HARMON • WISHBONE SPLITTER

“Wow, if you told me 20 years ago that one day we’d be eating plants, I would have called you crazy.”

CORDELIA MERCADO • SHOE REHABILITATOR

Michael Treehuggins
April 19, 2019
Breaking News/SATIRE FROM ENVIRO SNOWFLAKE BRIEF

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem reminisces about the fun she had as a child killing trapped animals with Grandma.

Rapid City, SOUTH DAKOTA (Enviro Snowflake Brief)— Gov. Kristi Noem’s Nest Predator Bounty Program, including a giveaway of approximately 16,500 live traps, at a cost of nearly $100,000, is her last-ditch effort to get South Dakota kids off the couch and playing outside.

Eligible species for kids to kill with Gov. Noem’s child friendly program — raccoon, striped skunk, opossum, badger and red fox — to be trapped only by youth residents within the state’s borders. Each kiddie trapper must submit a “snuff film” of taking the animal’s life along with the electronic bounty form (only kiddie trappers under the age of 10 qualify).

“It’s getting South Dakota kids outside,” Gov. Noem told a Rapid City Journal reporter. “If our toddlers find they enjoy killing a coon or a skunk, I think that’s a good thing. But getting kids outside and inspiring an interest to ‘kill shit,’ pardon my language, where they hadn’t been interested before, I think that’s win for the outdoors.”

Gov. Noem said she learned to hunt predators from her grandma. Those days afield with grandma were special times that set me up for a lifetime connection with killing animals that you can’t eat. But many kids today are missing that,” she said.

“We’ve got fewer kids hunting than ever before,” she said, noting that trapping numbers, too, have fallen, something she hopes the predator plan will address with children.

The elephant in the room across newsrooms in the state is the fact the “live trap” giveaway is technically part of Noem’s Second Century initiative, which is aimed at improving pheasant habitat in the state- not saving kids.

Gov. Noem had previously said decreasing the number of predators would improve nesting success for pheasants and other game birds, but the pushback from environmentalists using scientific facts caused the Governor to pivot her strategy.

Multiple wildlife biologists and ecologists have stated pheasants in South Dakota have been in decline since the 1960s because of modern farming practices, the use of chemical fertilizers, mowing road ditches and draining wetlands more than predation.

“Everything points to the habitat for the decline of the pheasant over and over,” Game, Fish & Parks Department Secretary Kelly Hepler said. “It’s the habitat, or lack of it, but the Governor is all about helping kids here.”

Gov. Kristi Noem’s ends every discussion about the Nest Bounty Program with the soundbite, “I want to get kids off the X-Box and out of the house and this is our only hope.”