We may be at a crossroads with health and well being on the one hand, and allegiance to environmental principles on the other.

While the “Talking heads” assure us the worst is over, and the President’s cabinet stump the streets doing likewise, reports continue to surface of the rebirth of angling, sustenance variety…

“Belt tightening” is the rage of cocktail parties, and forswearing of luxury the new esthetic – with woeful tales of suffering and deprivation swapped between mouthfuls of Starbuck’s and Cinnabon.

“Foraging” is the rallying cry of the neo-sporting fraternity, their food-lust indiscriminate; weeds and tubers, fish in park ponds, and anything with four legs that doesn’t alert neighbors.

Distinctions between brown and blue are blurred with survivalists intent on cheap eats – and as they shove their way into the crowd of us old timer’s, do we attempt to educate, or merely guard our lunch and walk further afield?

• Chauncey Niziol fishes for bass and bluegills in downtown Chicago.

• Steven Rinella traps squirrels and catches pigeons in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The chances that Chauncey and Steven have cracked the fish and game regulations are slim. Trifling detail like season, tackle restrictions, and  licensing probably hasn’t occurred to them.

Steven, “squab” is a grand meal, unfortunately MSNBC didn’t bother to check the regulations, and now you’re featured in absolutely every Post Office.

So where does that leave us? Tapping the fellow on the shoulder and mentioning the need for a valid NY Trappers license, or merely admiring how many pigeons over the “six in possession” limit he’s draped on his fender?

A street sweeper employed by the Doe Fund, a charity that employs homeless New Yorkers to clean city streets, picked up a $2,500 bonus last month by defending the pigeons on the Upper East Side. According to In Defense of Animals, Desi Stewart witnessed a man spreading bird seed on the ground and “netting a large number of pigeons.”

… or are we the guy putting chow on the table after “dropping dime” on the clueless n00b?

Longtime Singlebarbed readers are fitting themselves for ponchos, slim cheroots, and practicing the “Bounty Killer” swagger popularized by Spaghetti Westerns …

… but the activity has riled the venerable New York Bird Club, and suddenly the prospect of Clint’s icy voice coming from the nearby shrubbery would be the least of my worries…

Hell hath no fury like an Old Lady crumbling a crust of bread for pigeons. Driven by her screams, the crowd wouldn’t be content with anything short of dismemberment.