Oriole

First show on Old Time Radio tonight was an episode of Mark Trail from 1950.  Trail is a photojournalist and outdoor magazine writer in the series so maybe I should give him a break.  In this episode he's helping a couple who just inherited a large tract of land.   They want to make paths so they can charge people to hike there.  The antagonists of this story are a gang who wants to buy the land because a railroad is slated to go through a portion of it.  When the couple won't outright sell to the gang they dump a bunch of rattlesnakes in the area that Mark Trail and the couple are working.  Their plan is to make the couple give up the idea of making the land a hiking area.  Mark Trail finds one of the couple killing a snake in the bushes by the path.  I figured Trail would tell him not to kill rattlesnakes since they are beneficial to the ecosystem (though these were nefariously imported by the gang) and don't bite unless bothered.  Nope.  Trail comments that he's killed eight rattlesnakes himself that day.  Not exactly an environmentalist viewpoint.  When the couple think they might have to give up their plan, Trail says  he will import bull snakes for them which will kill/scare rattlesnakes away.  Really?  Checked a couple of sites on-line and that;s not true - both kinds of snakes been found hibernating together.   I'm guessing that the series writers went more w/ 50's mentalities and folklore than talking to an actual conservationist.