SIR: I am writing to raise concern about the shooting of the crows in Chatham-Kent.
The recent results of Chatham Kent's own handling of the crow situation has saddened and deeply. disturbed me and many of my friends and family. We are finding a large number of dead birds in our neighbourhood - right in the centre of town. Many of these birds seem to have suffered, and were obviously wounded and had flown away before suffering and dying.
It is horrible to see this and to know that other methods were proposed to help the overpopulation of crows by the OSPSA wildlife experts and were not carried out.
Right here in the city were we live, eating establishments and other businesses in Chatham-Kent pile garbage in unprotected bags on the curbside, then complain when the crows rip them open searching for food.
Our birdfeeders that are usually visited by usual throngs of back yard birds now go unvisited since the shooting has begun. I hope they are finding another food source. Each day my friends and I see several dead crows on the roadside on the way to school. If they are injured we could take them to someone to help.
The Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority gave us a pamphlet when we went there about who to call to get help if we find a wounded wild bird or animal. We got this pamphlet in the summer. It was called keep the Wild in Wildlife. They list people like the Ministry of Natural Resources (Wildlife Dept.) and the Tamarack Rehabilitation Centre and others.
The very people they tell us to get help from seem to be doing nothing to stop this terrible killing in the first place. Even now we hear the shots ring out, and its close to 10 at night.
Our pets are scared. I don't want to go outside, and I love to be outside. If I go out of the city itself, the same thing is happening in the county with private hunts. I hate it.
It's on the TV. On the news I see several hunters from the county proudly holding up dead crows by the legs just like the ones our neighbours in the city have shot and hung up in their trees supposedly to scare the other crows away. These hunters shown were winners for the largest crow shot. American hunters have been invited to participate in the next hunt.
I hope my family and I move elsewhere soon. I know that many people share my sadness in seeing these wounded and dead wildlife. I would like to feel free to visit the conservation areas of the Lower Thames without feeling so badly and without seeing these bush-league hunters out at my and my family's and friend's expense. I am a Canadian. I have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms up in my room.
My democratic rights and the rights of all citizens young and old who are being subjected to this suffering of wildlife and listening to guns until 10 o'clock some nights and not being able to sleep because of the anticipated results are being violated.
Please do something to reinstall my faith in the reasonableness and sensitivity that is supposed to what Canada is all about. Please in some way act on this. I will never stay in Chatham-Kent when I am older.
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress
can be judged by the way its animals are treated" ...Mahatma Gandhi