>You are a worker for the Department of Fish and Wildlife's...
>Oh, forget the spiel.  It's the weekend and you're off.
>You're busy tending to your backyard.
>It's not fenced in, and given your work schedule, you don't have much chance to maintain it.
>Fluffy herds wander through and eat your grass, leaving foul-smelling piles in their wakes.
>Sure, the grass loves it, but the neighbors don't.
>By the time you're done removing shit, it's after noon.
>Time to water.  You go fetch the hose.
>Before you can even start walking that way, however, you nearly trip over a fluffy pony.
>”Owwies!  No huwt fwuffy!” he says.
>This is a pink unicorn with an orange mane and tail and shining red eyes.
>He shrinks back when you look at him.
“What are you doing here?”
>”Fwuffy sowwy, pwease hewp fwuffy...”
“I don't take in strays.”
>”Fwuffy no wan' daddy, fwuffy wan' hewp fo' fwuffy fwiends...”
>You become a little suspicious.
“Are you a smarty friend?”
>He nods emphatically.  “Smawty fwiend!  Hooman pwease hewp fwuffies?”
>You fold your arms and look down at him.
>He trembles, but doesn't budge.  “No huwt, onwy wan' hewp hewd...”
>Well, he's being fairly polite about it.
>He must not have been able to penetrate the fences of the adjacent houses, and came to the only human he could see.
“What's wrong?”
>The smarty suddenly looks sullen, more sullen than you've ever seen a fluffy pony before.
>He starts trot-waddling toward the woods past the end of your property, stopping to look back at you.
>”Come wif fwuffy?” he asks.
>Hell, why not.
>You follow the pink smarty through the trees.
>For him, the going is slow; his fluff keeps getting caught on small stones.
>After a few minutes, you finally reach a large rock outcropping.
>Eleven other fluffies are huddled underneath it.  They look up at you fearfully.
>”Pwease no huwt mumma!” a greenish-grey pegasus cries.
>There's a problem with this small herd, however.
>It's summer, prime breeding season for a fluffy.
>'Season' is a bit of a misnomer, anyway.
>They're fluffy ponies; their propensity is to mate whenever they feel like it, which is all the damn time.
>Despite that, there's not a single foal to be found here.
>You can distinguish the mothers from the rest.
>There are four including the pegasus, lying on their sides and panting with worry and pain.
>Their teats are swollen visibly, full of milk for foals that aren't here.
>”Hooman, pwease hewp fin' babehs?” the smarty pleads, joining his herd.
>”Wuv babehs!  Why babehs go 'way?” another mom asks, this one a dusky blue earth fluffy.
>”Babehs no wan' miwkies?” a reddish-orange unicorn dam asks.
>You look around, up in the tree branches and down at the forest floor.
>There is no telling what happened to their foals.
>”Pwease hewp, nice hooman!  Fwuffies wan' babehs!” the smarty begs again.
>With a slight sigh, you start walking past the herd and into the woods.
“Fine, I'll be right back.”
>”Yay!  Hooman hewp fin' babehs!”
>”Wuv nice hooman!  Gif huggies!”
>You ignore the happy clamor of the ponies as it fades behind you.
>You'll just walk around for a few minutes, not find anything, then report back to the herd.
>They'll throw a fit and cry, but there's nothing you can do anyway.
>As you walk, you find that it's been raining enough to refill the small stream bed that runs back here.
>Since they're fluffy ponies, you check the stream first.
>As you have no idea the age of the foals, they may have wandered off.
>It's very possible that they drowned trying to drink water like the big ponies.
>There's a collection of rocks in the stream off to your left that you examine.
>It's free of corpses; if they'd fallen in, the current would have sent them here.
>Okay, so they didn't drown.
>There's no way in hell you're going to find them, these woods are massive.
>After waiting for a while, you start back to the herd to tell them the bad news.
>That's when the flash of color catches your eye.
>Above you, the branches bear tufts of brightly colored fluff.
>The trail of tufts proceeds back the way you came.
>The fluffies never saw them because they can't look up that high.
>You didn't see them until the sun was at your back.
>You follow the fluff trail slowly.
>A green tuft, upon closer examination, is not a tuft at all, but a shredded corpse.
>The foal this used to be couldn't have been more than three days old, barely walking age.
>It's been picked apart by something.
>You scan the trees again.
>Almost directly above you is another dead foal, this one a rich tan color.
>The foal's body is clutched in the talons of a small screech owl, which idly looks back down at you.
>In nearby trees, other owls roost quietly, waiting for the sun to disappear.
>That would explain that.
>Fluffy foals are easy prey for the owls here.
>If they were walking age, the parents would have taught them to use the bathroom away from where they slept.
>They complied, and got eaten for their obedience.
>You walk back to the outcropping, trying to figure out a way to frame this so they'll understand.
>”Hooman fin' babehs?” the smarty asks.
>You scratch your head and sigh.
“I'm sorry.  Fly monsters ate your babies.”
>The little herd huddles together with the childless mothers at the center, babbling fearfully.
>”F-fwy munsta?  Babehs no nummies!  Why fwy munsta take babehs 'way?!”
>The smarty is bitterly angry, at least as bitter and angry as a fluffy pony can be.
>You wonder which of the dams was his mate, and how many foals he lost.
>While the rest of the herd tries to console the heartbroken dams, and the smarty vents his frustration, you walk back toward your house.
>Just as you reach the edge of the woods, something drops in front of you.
>It's the head of a white unicorn foal.  You look up.
>Another screech owl gazes silently back at you.
>You look back for a moment before continuing on.
>No matter how many resources the State puts into controlling the fluffy population, one thing is very clear:
>Eventually, nature will figure out how to do it far better than humans will.