It is with great horror that I hear people talking about a cull. Cull the geese, cull the deer, kill the rabbits, and “the seals are eating all the salmon.”
How many homes have we built on the shorefront? How much pollution has gone into the water from marinas and docks?
Why can’t the geese live their lives? Nature has a way of balancing things out. Birds and animals follow the food source. No food, no geese. Do we have to mess with nature? OH! and let’s not forget the diseases that deer might be carrying or the cougars that might be trailing them into the heart of our cities. Oh please! The sky is falling! The family pet could bring a cougar into town.
It was ironic that your paper talked about before and after pictures of deep grass of the estuary reduced to mud. Have you looked around this city lately? Large lots of beautiful trees hacked down and the land reduced to mud. Where are the before and after pictures now? There are too many developments, not enough water and too much greed.
Why do people think they know what should live and what should die? Imagine if there were greater beings deciding humans should be culled to balance out the environment. Just stop and think about that. I believe Hitler tried it. Do you understand now?
So let’s look at the bottom line here. Geese are messy. Humans have decided the estuary must be saved and the geese are the problem. Deer are eating our cultured gardens and walking through our yards leaving reminders. They don’t seem to be afraid of us and that scares people. But Hey! if it’s in the way, just kill it.
Isn’t that what we do best? We are the problem. So let’s look at this imbalance from a different angle and find new solutions to the problems we caused. We should be messing with human nature and culling out our selfish beliefs that we can take everything we want without upsetting the balance of nature with other species paying a price.
It isn’t all about us!
E. Thompson
Parksville