"A sign at a playground in Moraga, a 35-minute drive from San Francisco, advises parents that rattlesnakes are 'important members of the natural community' and to give the snakes 'respect.'"

"Across the Bay in the San Francisco suburb of Burlingame, an animal shelter has rescued a family of skunks from a construction hole, a chameleon from power lines and nursed back to health 100 baby squirrels that tumbled out of their nests after their trees got trimmed. With the exception of the occasional aggressive coyote, the animals that roam the hills and gullies of the Bay Area — turkeys, mountain lions, deer, bobcats, foxes and the rest of a veritable Noah’s Ark — find themselves on somewhat laissez-faire terms with the humans around them. Not so for the rampaging feral pigs...."

From "The Rampaging Pigs of the San Francisco Bay Area/A proposed California law would make it easier to hunt feral swine, the voracious “super invaders” that are the bane of some East Bay suburbs" (NYT).