Where’s conservation in hunting?

Published: September 23, 2008 3:00 PM
Updated: September 23, 2008 3:00 PM
Dear editor,

I would like to commend Pat Newson for her letter to the editor in response to this past week’s article by Lindsay Chung, Ultimate Sportswoman (Record, Sept. 17).

In reading Chung’s article, Chantelle Bartsch asserts that her being an avid hunter and fisherwoman enables her to personally contribute to the conservation of wildlife. Unfortunately, however, Bartsch does not elaborate on why or how she believes the relationship between hunting and wildlife conservation is beneficial.

The World Wildlife Fund Canada (WWF Canada) is an organization whose mission is to facilitate a future in which humans live in harmony with nature; protecting Canadian wildlife and habitats is among its most daunting conservation challenges.

The act of hunting is not, in my opinion, synonymous with the harmony of which the WWF Canada speaks.

I agree with Pat Newson’s comment, consistent with the old saying, “take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.” And so I am compelled to ask the question, is not hunting wildlife quite the opposite of protecting it? Megan D. Flawith,

Courtenay

http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_north/comoxvalleyrecord/opinion/letters/29640324.html