Open letter to Mayor Bev Buckway:
Whistle Bend, as you know and choose to ignore, is a major wildlife corridor from the mountains to the river. Major. Wildlife. Corridor.
Whistle Bend is an extension of the McIntyre Creek area.
If you spend any time at all there you see how that whole area is part of one.
You only have narrow corridors, and animals will accommodate that to a certain point (Banff National Park is a prime example).
The whole area from Northland Trailer Park to Porter Creek to the Yukon River is one whole series of animal trails.
I have seen bears (including a blonde bear), moose, deer, fox, coyotes, including the biggest coyote I have ever seen, porcupines, a wolverine, a black wolf and of course a zillion squirrels and birds.
There is an eagle nest close to the river that I have never been able to locate, but early in the spring you can hear them.
Last February when it was so warm, there were overturned stumps and ripped-apart logs ... and bear tracks. So there are bear dens in that area.
Buckway, you ignore that. You ignore the petitions. You ignore people’s opinions. You ignore environmental warnings à you ignore everything and everyone that disagrees with your preset and rockhard point of view.
You say the development there can be stopped. I challenge you on that one. Strong language, you ask? We’ve got reasons to be strong; you have shown in the past that you “pretend” to listen to dissent, but you always know better than the people. Better than the experts. Better than anything.
Not only will you be putting residents at risk from wildlife that use that corridor and will have to find other ways to get where they traditionally go, but you cause a hazard by placing development close to the river.
Toxins, pesticides, fertilizers and other pollutants will be so close to the river that this will have a major effect.
Don’t care? I know.
I went to one of the first public meetings held about this development and basically was shot down. I knew then that my, and others’ voices would not be heard, but it really is a travesty.
Not only will this beautifully endowed area be lost but the river will be affected as well, as it always is by development so close to it. And in future years, when animals come to town, they will be destroyed because they will be considered “rogue.”
And yet we destroy their rich habitat and displace them without a by-your-leave.
There were many other places in this city limits that would not be so disruptive both to wildlife, the environment and also to the hundreds of people that use that area every day. But no, you choose to take a piece of paradise, for both animals and humans, and turn it into a cookie-cutter concrete jungle.
You say it can be stopped? Prove it.
Susan Moralis
Whitehorse