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Destruction of habitat

Letters

Editor:

In the last couple of months, articles containing disturbing information, reported in the Vancouver media, have caught my attention.

1) Wild horses are adversely affecting moose populations and concerns they may be culled.

2) Pink salmon are responsible for declining whale populations.

3) Seals and sea lions are responsible for other disappearing salmon species and may now have to be hunted.

4) Wolves must be culled for the sake of the caribou.

5) Wildfires are the result of not enough burning.

Does this strike anyone else as being outrageous? The common factor in all these problems, that I can see, is destruction of habitat for the species and that, fellow readers, is all on us – humans. Clear-cut logging and hunting are responsible for lack of habitat for moose and the lack of moose. Clear-cut logging is polluting streams; fish farming and acidification are fouling the oceans and killing the salmon. Loss of habitat for the caribou is killing the caribou

Wildfires are the result of global warming, which is exacerbated by clear-cut logging, burning of fossil fuels, oil extraction and fracking. The province’s new method of “let it burn the fuel” is causing thousands of hectares of forests and lands to be burned, resulting in killed, injured and displaced wildlife across B.C. Wildfires need to be put out immediately once they’ve started. This can be done if the decision is made to put them out rather than let the fires burn the “fuel on the ground.”

Blaming one animal for another’s decline is just the way to take pressure off the humans who are the only animal that is responsible for another species’ destruction.

Charlene Penner, Roberts Creek