In response to Eva Durance’s park letter: More smoke and mirrors to attempt to convince us to accept a national park.
As an avid elk hunter, I have only ever seen elk at A&Ws near national parks. The ones we hunt and harvest always seem to run away at the sight of us. Funny how some people like domesticated wildlife while others like myself revel in the thoughts of wild animals in wild places. I won’t even ask her what studies she reads and in fact she points to none. Her comment that I have no evidence is pure bunk.
For you readers who are truly interested, you simply have to Google Banff National Park. There are pages pointing to elk problems, articles by well-known scientists explaining the problems in the park, grizzly experts denouncing the parks and so on and so on. So any of my huffing and puffing and so called “assertions” won’t change these well-documented facts. As we banter back and forth, animals near towns and parks are being killed basically just to get rid of them. That’s our job, Eva, as hunters and caretakers of the land — always has been and always will. Your comment about “no plans to build a town in the middle of the park” is just plain funny. We are already here, in the middle of it.
Many have said the best thing that could happen to Banff would be for the town to disappear. Or, as one of your favourite past-presidents of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society stated, “Save Banff from becoming the great indoors.” As I said in my previous letter I won’t comment any further on the helicopter company.
My only comment on the Native hunting issue is this, hunting will occur whether it’s a NPR or not, and I’m all for it. At the urging of Eva’s friends Earthcare on Jan. 6, 2004 they requested our Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen to honour the Okanagan Shuswap LRMP. That was awesome. A member of the LRMP standing by their word as it should be. The RDOS, however, responded that the province will not legislate a protected area until the LRMP (Land Resource Management Plan) committee has been able to come to an agreement on how to mitigate the impact that the new national park reserve will have on other resource users. A certain impossibility. So yes the implementation and the care needed for the protected areas were stalled due to this park proposal and valuable money, time and resources have been wasted on this national park proposal when it could have been spent on looking after what we have now.
I personally know people in Kelowna who were polled regarding the park, and surprisingly someone from Grand Forks was polled also. If you get the answer you want, that’s local enough for her I guess. I wish to retract one statement, however, and that is regarding the polarizing of our community. I was never so wrong, as we are now even more united as a small community in the fight for our rights to enjoy our backyards. Every time we explain to others what happens to the locals when a national park comes to town the more support we get. All I can say in closing is that I hope we get to work soon on the protected areas that we have, in a cohesive and democratic way.
Ernie Marven
Cawston