Re: provincial wolf cull.
Wolves are not to blame for B.C.’s caribou crisis, yet they are about to be killed in an attempt to keep the caribou from disappearing from our landscape.
Once again, the province has found a convenient scape-goat to deflect blame away from the real cause of the problem — long term mismanagement of B.C.’s lands and forests.
Government biologists have been warning politicians for years that forestry practices, roads, recreational uses and other intrusions into caribou habitat would eventually result in this situation; but not surprisingly, there were higher priorities of government that took precedence. So, it has come to this.
Just once, I would like the provincial government to show some contrition, and accept blame for its past mismanagement of lands and forests that led to this problem in the first place.
This is not the first time the provincial government has chosen to cull one species to help another that has been driven into decline by government mismanagement. A few years ago, the provincial government instituted a cull of barred owls to protect spotted owls that have almost disappeared because of government forestry practices that decimated much of our old growth forests. What’s next?
We deserve a government that listens to biologists and is honest with the public. Is that too much to ask?
Ross Peterson
Nanoose Bay