The plastic bag conspiracy

Anyone who has visited Livingston in the middle of winter has no doubt seen and heard the plastic grocery bags hung up on the branches of trees in town where they pop and snap in the wind.

It’s an unsightly winter phenomenon, the result of uncorralled trash and unrelenting winds. The problem disappears from sight in the spring when the trees leaf out and the foliage hides the remains of the plastic bags.

I never considered it anything more than a seasonal reminder not to litter, but now I find it may indicate something a bit more sinister.

A Facebook friend from Georgia recently posted a picture of a plastic bag in a tree with the warning that dognappers are targeting potential victims by marking their homes in such a manner.

An online search revealed more about the subject of plastic bags in trees than I could have imagined, including a gallery of fascinating photographs of plastic bags in trees. While the prevailing rumor blames the bags on dognappers, it was also pointed out that plastic bags are occasionally tied in trees to discourage birds and other pests, or to mark trees that should or should not be sprayed.

The dognapping rumor, which also swept across the UK, Spain and Australia, has it that the purloined pooches are being used as fodder to train fighting dogs. And although that may be true, there are an awful lot of bags snapping in the trees this winter. Has dog fighting really become that popular? Has Michael Vick moved his Bad Newz Kennel to Livingston?

I suspect not.

It’s well known that the disgraced former Atlanta Falcons quarterback, who spent 21 months in prison for a dog-fighting conviction in 2007, doesn’t like cold weather.

If nothing else, the dognapper rumor gives me another training tool with which to threaten my ill-disciplined pack. I told Jem this morning that if I caught him in the garbage one more time I would tie a plastic bag to one of the trees in the yard and put him outside wearing a sign that read “Pit bulls aren’t so tough.”

Plastic bags tied to trees might indicate something nefarious is afoot in certain parts of the world, but that’s probably not what it means out here. In Livingston it simply means someone was careless with their trash.

Parker Heinlein is at

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