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6 stouffville suntribune saturday dec 9 2006 suntnhune a metroland communily newspaper 6290 main st stouffville on l4a7z5 publisher ian proudfoot editor in chief debora kelly business manager robert lazurko director interactive media technology johnfuthey director advertising distribution barry black director circulation systems lynn pashko marketingpartnerships director debra welter york region printing general manager bob dean letters to the editor bannons record speaks for itself re only golf club elected councillor bannon letter to the editor by mark harpen nov 23 mr harper is once again trying to divide the community not content to pit lake resident against lake resident with his organization the friends of musselmans lake he now wants to pit the jake resi dents against the community of ballantrae the way voters cast their ballots in ward 2 in retrospect really was no surprise ballantrae is basically a retirement com munity and the doomed daycare centre is not an issue they voted for the man who had worked the hardest for his communi ty phil bannon musselmans lake is a family commu nity the focus became daycare and an unknown candidate justin altmann who was promising to keep it open when you have young children and need to work your primary focus is affordable daycare mr bannon worked extremely hard for two years to come up with an equitable solution but to some voters his efforts were not enough and they grasped at straws with a newcomer who was promis ing to solve all their problems with his pre election magic wand i think he borrowed it from dalton mcguinty and it would have worked as well for mr altmann after the election as it did for mr broken promises mcguinty mr altmann was magically going to keep the daycare open make trucks dis appear from aurora road and the best one have lake residents design their own roads around the lake i guess we were all going to be granted engineering degrees what is really sad is that a ward 4 resi dent mr altmann can see an opportuni ty daycare do a lastminute parachute into the ward and almost unseat a local ward 2 resident mr bannon who has worked tirelessly for his community mr bannon was successful in closing an illegal dumping operation which if unchecked would have polluted the air and water of the whole community he has improved law and bylaw enforcement improved roads organizes the winter car nival each year at the lake and helps numerous charities i just wish mr harper would follow his own advice listen to everyone and respect everyones opinion not just those who support him we do not need a divid ed community in ward 2 rickwigmore musselmans lake enaish lessons charisma and a mapof albert t licence to kill not answer to preserving caribou how do you protect an endangered species well if youre the government of british columbia the answer is simple you kill stuff that may sound crude but so is what that provinces government is considering to save endangered caribou found in the eastern parts of bc and down into idaho where they are protected under the us endangered species act the mountain caribou is one of the most endangered mammals in north america their population has declined alarmingly fast while there were an estimated 2500 animals in bc in the 1990s today there are fewer than 1900 to make matters worse what historically had likely been one large population has been frag mented into as many as 18 sub- populations some of which are completely isolated from one another such isolation raises problems of inbreeding and makes popula tions less likely to survive two of these small herds have recently disappeared altogether in 2004 the province convened a science team to assess the status of the caribou and provide options for the recovery of the species this fall the panel reported back providing a series of recom mendations from habitat pro tection to controlling access to critical caribou habitat to culling competing predators and prey given that the primary under lying threat to mountain caribou is from habitat loss the recommen dation of protecting habitat was not surprising what was surprising however was the governments announce ment that recovery options and management actions did not include maps of the caribous core habitat or provide details on the recommended protected areas instead the announcement focused largely on just one of six potential actions killing stuff the theory is if you kill the cari- david suzuki bous potential predators such as grizzly bears wolverines cougars and wolves along with compet ing prey species such as elk and moose it reduces pressure on the mountain caribou yet the science panel itself was not definitive on the effectiveness of this action killing other species in hopes of protecting a specific one is a risky and unproven strategy everything we have learned about conservation biology tells us ecosystems are extremely com plex and interconnected crude simplistic methods of human intervention are likely to prove unhelpful and potentially disas trous we also dont know how much of a factor illegal hunting has been in the caribous decline recently university of british columbia researcher peter arcese and others looked at the effectiveness of anti- poaching patrols in tanzanias serengeti national park their findings published in the journal science reported the abundance of a variety of species could be directly linked to the number of antipoaching patrols conducted dr arcese noted recently in the vancouver sun that mountain caribou in british columbia could be disappearing due to poaching but we wouldnt know because there are so few officers patrolling the woods so heres the situation we know nature is decidedly complex and we know invasive manage ment techniques to recover species at risk rarely work we know logging is still allowed in mountain caribou habitat we dont know how much illegal hunting is occurring because we dont have enough conservation officers or a comprehensive sys tem to monitor poaching and some of the creatures the government has suggested we kill to protect the caribou such as grizzly hears and wolverines are themselves threatened species habitat protection wont save all the caribou but it is the species best bet and it will directly benefit hundreds of other species sharing the same oldgrowth habitat protecting threatened species often requires making some tough decisions that can pit shortterm economic goals against more sus tainable longterm options s trying to take conservation short cuts by culling other crea tures may be politically expedient but it is a risky strategy that history tells us is doomed to fail me the david suzuki challenge at wwwdavidsuzukiorg letters policy the suntribune welcomes your letters all submissions must be less than 400 words and must include a daytime telephone number name and address the suntribuncrescrves the right to publish or not publish and to edit tor clarity and space letters to the editor the suntribune 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