SONG: The Banana Slug Song

CALIFORNIA STATE MOLLUSK?  

BANANA SLUG SONG

The banana slug
is the slug for me.
He's what every mollusk
wishes he could be.
I love him.
I can hardly stand
to touch the creature
with my hand.
Nothing's quite as ug-
ly as banana slug.

     In March, 1988 the boys and girls of a Campfire club in Redwood City, mostly 8-year-olds, were studying government and natural resources. California already had an official reptile (desert tortoise), an official insect (California dog-face butterfly), and an official rock (serpentine). They wanted to sponsor legislation declaring the banana slug official state mollusk.
     The children did not choose the slug lightly. They argued that the banana slug is a protector of vulnerable seedlings in coastal redwood forests, a hungry consumer of poison oak and decaying leaves Its droppings help fertilize the forest.
     Assemblyman Byron Sher sponsored AB3007 and the state legislature passed the bill 42-30. But the Senate shot it down 18-3. "Banana Slug Squashed as State Mollusk," read the Los Angeles Times on May 30.
     Some senators complained that such bills trivialize the legislative process. One of them said, "This is one of those items that makes you wonder why we are here. It's embarrassing." Others argued for the red abalone instead. Another called the slug "repulsive." He added, "Those things are not only not edible, but they are horrible. I understand they are so salty they can't be used for anything."
     Googling banana slug just now, 22 years later, I found sites that say the bill passed Assembly and Senate only to be vetoed by the governor and I found sites that claim it is the state mollusk. But as far as I know, the only time it reached the Senate, the bill failed and to date, the position of official mollusk for the state of California has not been filled.
     I say if we can have an official rock, we can have an official mollusk. And I don't see what tasting horrible has to do with it. Since when do we determine our state flower, reptile, insect or rock on the basis of taste? Since when do we eat our state bird? Why would we eat our state mollusk?



Photo by Greg Bodi via Wikimedia Commons.
Song by Jessica Shaver, to be sung to theme song from The Pajama Game