Nature truly is a two-faced entity.
On one face, there is the “beauty” of the sweet-eyed deer along with their cute, little spotted fawns invading our city, munching our gardens and ruining our landscaping. There are the stags, majestic, standing in profile after having torn your shrubs apart in removing the velvet from their horns, and showing other stags their strength when in rutting season. Still beautiful?
Now we have the darker, not-so-pleasant side of nature. The “natural order of things.” Where there is prey, there will be predators such as coyotes, cougars, even bears at times will be carnivores — not nice, but it is nature.
Now we, in Penticton, have a problem. The deer, finding an easy, always freshly watered source of food, and previous lack of predators, have decided to become urbanites. The plenitude of the vegetation creates higher birth rates, often twins.
And now the darker side of nature arrives in town. The predators are not over-running the city. They are simply following the natural order of things. The overpopulation of deer in Penticton have created a virtual picnic for the coyotes, even cougars. The coyotes are doing what is natural. They are simply following the deer. Again I say, where there is prey, there will be predators.
Now the pro-deer people want to kill coyotes, nature’s own gamekeepers.
Some people, not caring properly for their pets, allow them to run unsupervised. Immediately, those pets also become part of “beautiful nature’s” balance.
Get my drift here?
Try Googling Australia and their rabbit problem, or Cain frogs. Australia tried to improve on nature as well. It just isn’t a wise thing to do.
Lois Linds
Penticton