Cohousing-L Mailing List: Mo pets, mo responsibility

[Mmariner (Mmariner]

To add to Rob's excellent post about pet impact on wildlife:

I frequently walk around a small, idyllic lake near my home.  This lake was
designed (nurtured) to have a marshy wildlife (water fowl, turtles, etc) area
at one end of the lake.  But people walk their dogs without leashes and allow
them to romp in the water -- all around the lake.  As a result there were
almost no young water fowl this year -- one family of Canadian Geese managed
to hatch some goslings -- though i don't know how.

These aren't heartless people who want to destroy wildlife, they're just
unconscious.  I love dogs and cats but I love all the other species too.  In
the case of our local lake, if the dog owners would restrict their pets to
the end of the lake opposite the marshy areas we could have happy dogs and
wildlife too.  Simple solution.

I don't want a world where the only species are humans, dogs, cats, carp,
geraniums, kentucky bluegrass, starlings, slugs, cockroaches and ants!

Mike M