[MissoulaGov] cats & dogs & stewardship

[Jim McGrath]

How so?

I do not believe you have world enough and time to do both.

 

________________________________

From: Marilyn Marler [mailto:marler at bigsky.net] 
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 12:38 PM
To: Jim McGrath; Jason Wiener; missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] cats & dogs & stewardship

 

Jim: Great example of yet another false dichotomy.

 

	----- Original Message ----- 

	From: Jim McGrath <mailto:jmcgrath at missoulahousing.org>  

	To: Marilyn Marler <mailto:marler at bigsky.net>  ; Jason Wiener
<mailto:JWiener at ci.missoula.mt.us>  ; missoulagov at cmslists.com 

	Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 12:24 PM

	Subject: RE: [MissoulaGov] cats & dogs & stewardship

	I would rather live in a community that provides more and better
housing, safe neighborhoods, effective and clean transportation choices
etc. but allows cats outside even though they kill song birds. I would
rather not live in a community whose leaders take great pains to
regulate cats but does nothing much for housing, transportation, crime
etc. 

	 

	But that's me. You may have your own priorities.

	 

	
________________________________


	From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Marilyn Marler
	Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 11:16 AM
	To: Jason Wiener; missoulagov at cmslists.com
	Subject: [MissoulaGov] cats & dogs & stewardship

	 

	    Now that I've taken a full day to decompress from Bob's
description of the "dogs off leash" discussion, I can cheerfully say
that, unlike Jason (apparently) I *did* run for council at least in part
because of my interest in conservation issues and good stewardship of
natural areas and wildlife.

	    Cats roaming free in town *do* have negative impacts to
native wildlife. They kill a lot of birds. If only we could train them
to kill starlings and house sparrows, but we can't. They just as happily
eat migratory warblers or northern flickers (our neighbors' cat killed a
flicker just recently). Birds have enough issues with habitat loss; do
we have to also accept that our pets "need" to eat them?  Cats can hunt
even with bells, even if they are de-clawed. You might not see it, but
it happens.  Denial is not a river in Egypt, as they say.  And I'm not
even getting into general bad cat behavior like pooping in garden beds
and so on, which is a legitimate quality of life issue. We need to move
towards cats as indoor pets, although I don't think its appropriate for
government to require it.  You can't have it both ways- be an advocate
of local wildlife and an advocate of outdoor unsupervised cats. (note: I
have 3 rescued cats who I love dearly).

	    Dogs off leash in our conservation areas *do* have negative
impacts to native wildlife.  One person wrote to this list serve that
she saw "only" 8 incidents per year of dogs harrassing wildlife.  I did
some math and if one person who spends 520 hours per year on one area of
open space sees 8 incidents per year, and you expand that to cover 8
hours a day for 260 days, and then expand that to 4 conservation areas
(North Hills, Mt Sentinel, L trail, Lincoln Hills), then someone's dog
is harassing wildlife about avery 3rd day. I think that is very
conservative because 1) a lot happens out of eyesight, and 2) there are
more than 8 hours per day that people are walking dogs on conservation
areas, and 3) you could probably divide those conservation areas each
again for a multiplyer of 8 instead of 4. So conservatively, every other
day.

	    Bob, you included some obnoxiuos descriptions of arguements
in favor of leashed dogs. You did not include Pam's suggestion that dogs
off leash harassing wildlife might be a positive thing because we have
too many urban deer.  If we are going to do something about our urban
deer population, I really hope we can aspire to do something humane and
productive, rather than letting dogs run them to death.

	    Again, I'm only focusing on conservation/stewardship issues
here. Not social issues of whether I want someone's dog tripping me
while I'm out for a run (as happens almost every time I run on the river
trail which is technically a leash area but I'm good natured so I deal
with it), or stealing my food when I'm working on Mt Sentinel. (note: I
love dogs)

	    And I'll close with something that is more of a topic for a
book I'm writing in my head- Can we please start moving beyond a false
dichotomy of Human Influenced vs Non Human Influenced places?  The world
is human influenced.  Let's make mindful choices always. We CAN have our
pets but respect wildlife. We CAN have landscaping that makes room for
biodiversity and wildlife.  It's old fashioned to think of humans as
only having detrimental effects on nature.  2 good books I'm reading now
(for those of you looking for winter reading):  The Sunflower Forest
<http://www.amazon.com/Sunflower-Forest-Ecological-Restoration-Communion
/dp/0520233204/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233337878&sr=8-1>
and Bringing Nature Home.  Thanks for listening to my thoughts on this.
Marilyn

	 

	 

		----- Original Message ----- 

		From: Jason Wiener <mailto:JWiener at ci.missoula.mt.us>  

		To: missoulagov at cmslists.com 

		Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 9:10 PM

		Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] committee update 1-28-09

		 

		Amen. Though I will eventually have to do so, I sure
didn't run because I wanted to spend time regulating the presence,
absence or behavior of small animals. I guess the chicken shit should
have tipped me off though, huh? 

		 

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