easter egg apocalypse

The past decade has all but eliminated trick-or-treating and sitting on Santa's lap at the mall. Can the extinction of the traditional Easter egg hunt be far behind? Some low points for this tragic custom:

Flint, Michigan, 2004
Children taking parting in a hunt sponsored by the Ruth Street Church of God at a local elementary school found about 200 boiled and plastic eggs — and two loaded guns, one of which was hidden in the trunk of a rotting tree.

Daytona Beach, Florida, 1998
The World Harvest Church filled eggs with Bible verses and candy and then watched as 5000 families turned the event into a free-for-all. "I saw a lady stealing out of a little kid's basket," said one mother. Another adult said, "This isn't an Easter egg hunt. It's an Easter egg massacre."

Anchorage, Alaska, 1991
Hundreds of children took part in the annual hunt, but some wandered into the woods or got stuck in waist-deep snow. Several children were reported missing; many complained of freezing fingers and toes.

St. Louis, Missouri, 1991
The riverfront hunt turned ugly when parents broke through yellow police ribbons set up to mark off the grassy fields and began snatching up the 20,000 plastic eggs. Those who arrived just before the official 11:45 a.m. start found the fields picked clean.

St. Catharine's, Ontario, Canada, 1991
Parents fought and elbowed one another to snatch eggs and candy from children at a hunt at a local mall. "The adults went in there like crazy," a mother said. "They trampled my daughter's basket."

South Portland, Maine, 1991
The program director of the Parks Department asked the city to discontinue its annual hunt because of the greed of parents. "I saw parents pushing kids down and taking the candy," she said.

Winterset, Iowa, 1990
Officials asked that children throw away their chocolate candy, eggs and other goodies collected during the hunt after learning that the city's Whistle Stop Park had been sprayed with pesticides and fertilizers two days earlier.

Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1989
Fearing for the safety of the city's children, officials canceled the annual
hunt. In previous years, parents had complained that their toddlers were injured by bigger children who found the eggs more quickly.

New York City, 1981
Calamity struck the annual hunt in Central Park when prizes were thrown up for grabs, touching off a stampede of several thousand people. Six people were hurt, and dozens of youngsters were separated from their parents. "It was not very pleasant," said Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis. "Big kids were pushing smaller kids."