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The blame game won’t help Ross River residents

The blame game won't help Ross River residents I read an article about the Ross River situation that resonated very deeply with me. It was an article talking about how the overall response by the rest of the Yukon is shockingly absent. There have been li

I read an article about the Ross River situation that resonated very deeply with me.

It was an article talking about how the overall response by the rest of the Yukon is shockingly absent. There have been little to no solutions or pledges of support provided by the ordinary citizen of the Yukon. And even though one of our communities is in a state of siege by feral animals, no one seems to be responding to the crisis.

There will be government help provided, but the rest of the Yukon, from the individual citizen to the entire community seems to be silent.

In the light of the movement to support Fort McMurray, you would assume that Yukoners are the kind of people that will rise to any occasion to help those in trouble. Our generosity and our sense of community is what makes us so special in this crazy world.

This is utterly tragic, but not so surprising. Let’s face it - at this moment, there is a play that was written and produced that romanticizes the story of a dog that was put down because of an attack on a human. There was tens of thousands of dollars raised for this dog, but there has been no effort to raise the same sort of support for the human residents of our territory that are in danger every day because of wild animals.

We can look at this so many ways. We can try to blame Ross River for not keeping their dogs under control before it became a problem. We can try to blame the territorial government for not providing support and curbing the issue.

We can try to blame the federal government for not having proper legislation providing humans with the right protection under the law if they have to deal with these sorts of situations. We can try to blame each other.

I wrote this letter with the intent of bringing to light a shocking juxtaposition in the way we support people in trouble. But blame will not bring any solutions to Ross River. And that, more than anything else, is what they need right now.

Telek Rogan

Whitehorse