Public financing of contraception is always a controversial subject. This is no less so when it's for the birds -- literally. Today's New York Times reports on efforts to put parakeets on the pill:

In wildlife management there is no tougher public relations problem than a cute pest, which is partly why scientists and wildlife managers are showing increasing interest in a new, nonlethal means of animal control: contraception. The monks [a type of parakeet] have joined a variety of other species, some cuter than others, but all with passionate defenders, as a target for enforced infertility.

Parakeets are not the only species subject to such efforts. Wildlife managers have also sought to use contraception to control populations of geese, deer and other "pest" species.

Everywhere animals that people would rather not have in such large numbers are doing or have just done what Cole Porter's birds, bees and educated fleas are famous for. That's fine; it's the inevitable results that scientists are working on.