“...varmints going through their garbage or wrecking their gardens,...
Where this is a problem in suburbia, antihunters still refuse to allow hired hunters to cull the deer which are causing all the damage, much less bears (dangerous to humans) or racoons (carry rabies). It’s a mindset that truly thinks humans do not outrank animals.
When a woman hiking in California was attacked & killed by a mountain lion, the majority opinion was that she shouldn’t have been invading the predator’s territory. No sense of her tragic death whatsoever. Again, a mindset.
Only a few ventured to suggest that she shouldn’t have been out hiking without packing some form of lion medicine like a large caliber handgun.
Yeah, that's the excuse that galls me the most. At one point virtually the whole world was some predators other than humans territory. Huge bears and types of lions used to rule the U.S. We, human inhabitants, made it OUR territory just like the lesser species in earlier times made it their territory. If we can live in some area on the earth, it's OUR territory. Our species outranks all others.