Hi Everybody
I am glad to see that I provoked some comment and maybe even made people
think a little about some conservation priorities.
Just to clarify one point I was not suggesting there should be an open
season for duck-shooting this year with the birds concentrated on the few
wetlands that are holding on in the drought. I agree that it is totally
reasonable and desirable that this year there be no open season on
conservation grounds. I was making the point that it would be better for
the ducks from a conservation perspective that there was not a drought and
there was a duck-shooting season.
As individuals we all need to think about conservation issues, operate on
the facts, emotion and passion are vital ingredients but in the end our
actions should be based on facts.
When you build your house make sure there is no rainforest timber in its
construction.
When you had your prawns at Christmas potentially you were contributing to
the deaths of many fish taken as bycatch and to the denuding of the bottom
of the ocean by the repeated dragging across it of the trawl nets. If you
had salmon you were contributing to a highly polluting industry that with
very large quantities of fish concentrated in bays and inlets drastically
overloads that area with nutrients. This causes destruction of the natural
bottom life, toxic algal blooms and in some fish feedlotting operations the
proliferation of silver gulls with the impact they cause on other bird species.
It is easy to vilify and typecast a particular group especially if they are
a minority and you may get a warm fuzzy feeling from doing this and yet if
we open our eyes there are many ways that all of us can make a much more
positive contribution to conservation if we make the effort.
Karen Pearson in her reply stated that duck-shooting is a recreational
activity, interestingly enough that is just how fishing is described so
please show me how there is significant difference in a hunter shooting a
duck to eat or a fisherman taking a fish to eat. Tag and release is another
pursuit in fishing where the fish is tortured by being dragged through the
water for the maximum time on the lightest possible line. Then has a barbed
tag speared into its side then released to live or die. But of course we do
not comment on that as there are too many fishermen in the community it is
much easier to vilify a minority in this era of tolerance.
I promise not to preach anymore on this topic in the short term.
Regards
Ken Grinter
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