Letter to the Editor

Elections can be fun, but stressful and divisive; they serve to emphasize the ‘Us vs. Them’ dichotomy.

One example of such divisiveness is when someone you considered a friend has the ‘wrong’ sign on his/her lawn and will vote for the heathens. We thought they had more sense than that, making it difficult for us to practice the supreme virtue of tolerance.

Then there are the preposterous promises carried on CBC TV and radio by the PM and party leaders. These began early in the long campaign and have accelerated to a fever pitch. The economy, jobs, dams, logging, oil and gas drilling and fracking will be decided by corporations and unpredictable future world events that are far beyond the influence of party policies; the promises do not even represent reasonable guesses, amounting to farting in a windstorm.

This brings us to another divisive issue, the provincial government’s edict to continue the culling of wolves. Many wolves must be shot in order to save some 15 caribou, whose days are numbered because of things we have done, such as clear cut logging. Caribou inhabit clearcut areas, making them vulnerable to wolves. ATVing and snowmobiling in restricted areas are also disruptive. For caribou it’s too little, too late. Rumors are that we have folks in our midst who love to kill predators in order to increase the number of ungulates they and other hunters can kill.

Also, our current provincial Minister of Energy and Mines is lecturing us and pontificating about how the predators must be controlled (Townsman-25 September 2015).

Predator/prey management is much more than tracking predator/prey numbers and allotting hunting licences. Politicians often say, “I’m not a scientist” to justify a lack of understanding of predator/prey relationships. Yet, they say we must do a “scientific” wolf cull, as supported by our MLA.

A popular book, which apparently appeals to the ‘cullers,’ is The Real Wolf, written by T.B. Lyon-a hunter and trial lawyer. For definitive objective science on the complex predator/prey issue the politicians might read Wolves of the Yukon by R.D. Hayes, a biologist with decades of experience in studying wolves with and without human intervention. Which author’s credentials would seem more relevant?

For starters, in this area we could rescue and domesticate the remaining reindeer, leave the wolves alone, stay out of the wilderness-designated forests with machines and carefully regulate ungulate hunting licences.

Jack Loeppky,

Cranbrook

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