[MissoulaGov] cats & dogs & stewardship

[Jim McGrath]

Assuming things all have equal importance, you still have trade-offs.

Thanks for clarifying your position on cats and dogs.

Good luck working on all issues possible and solving the big ones. 

 

Typically elected officials either pick priorities to invest their time
in (at the expense of others - or maybe that's a false dichotomy because
you have no limit on your time) or priorities are set for them by
others. Sometimes the forces are beyond your control - I'm sure Bush
didn't want to deal with a mortgage crisis. 

 

So pick your battles is all I've said.

 

________________________________

From: Marilyn Marler [mailto:marler at bigsky.net] 
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 12:57 PM
To: Jim McGrath; Jason Wiener; missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] cats & dogs & stewardship

 

You can make up false trade offs all day long. We have all kinds of
issues to deal with, and any of them could be made fun of as
unnecessary.

 

Would I rather have  a city government that provides affordable housing,
or one that organizes foot races?  Well, I choose affordable housing! 

Would I rather that it be safe to walk the streets, or make small grants
available for neighborhood gardens?  Heck, safe to walk the streets!

 

And so on.

 

Re: what I propose for responsible pet ownership rules, I think we need
to 

1) update some of the existing ordinances about nuisance cats and dogs
(coming up in PSH in Feb)

2) NOT change the existing rulse about leashes vs voice restraint on
conservation lands (public hearing scheduled sometime in Feb)

 

Thanks. marilyn

 

	----- 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 12:45 PM

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

	 

	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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