Wander With Wild Things

So I'm sitting at a public hearing last night about updates to wildlife regulations. I learned that now we are instituting a permit system for allowing people to kill species listed as Species of Concern (one notch below Threatened) if they are "depredating" (read: eating landscaping, etc) your property. You could already kill them anyway, but a permit system will allow for tracking of who's massacring what. It was explained that this regulation was designed especially for people who are having "elk problems" in the mountains (elk are currently a species of concern here).

WTF???!!!!!

If you don't like elk wandering into your yard, DON'T LIVE IN THE BLOODY MOUNTAINS. Stay in your damn suburb. And don't tell me you have to move there because of a job, because there are no jobs up there. Don't build your stupid McMansion in the woods and then start whining because the animals that live there happen to wander through and munch on the tasty buffet of plants you had your landscaper put out.

These people want to live in places that are "scenic." So they buy part of a mountain, build some ridiculous house, go up there for a couple weekends out of the year. But all that wildlife and dirt and quiet and darkness and disorder is just way too damn far outside of their comfort zone and they want it to look like their little manicured, sterile yards in the subdivision. So they expect us to let them kill the elk, introduce invasive plants, install 50 "security lights," cut down the trees to improve their view, build and pave roads, and erect police stations, fire houses, hospitals, Starbucks, and a Target for their convenience and comfort. Well, congratulations, you just turned your scenic mountainside into the ugly suburban hell you came from. And in the process, killed or drove out all the nature that you supposedly came up there for.

So do us all a favour: if you want to live somewhere with the above list of amenities, don't come to our wild places and expect us to domesticate them for you. For five seconds, experience a moment outside of your egocentric world and leave a place or two for the wildlife because they have nowhere else to go. You are welcome to come and visit and take pictures.