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Page 14<br />
Squirrel Talk<br />
The <strong>OSCAR</strong> - OUR 38 th YEAR<br />
Helping Baby Wildlife is Outlawed by Ontario<br />
By: Tania & Michaël<br />
This time we turn our eyes to<br />
Ontario level government as it<br />
affects our region, in particular<br />
we look at wildlife management<br />
(a theme we also see at the municipal<br />
level http://goo.gl/2J7jI after a lot of<br />
activism from local folks).<br />
The Ontario Ministry of Natural<br />
Resources (MNR) is intervening with<br />
a very heavy hand at compassionate<br />
& knowledgeable people who are caring<br />
for orphaned baby animals. This<br />
doesn’t make sense to us or to our<br />
friends, so we thought we would investigate<br />
a little.<br />
You may have heard about Lynne<br />
Rowe, the <strong>Ottawa</strong> area woman from<br />
the Constance Creek Wildlife Refuge<br />
who had been caring for two<br />
young raccoons for months and was<br />
just about ready to release these animals<br />
back into the wild, when at least<br />
four MNR officers showed up to take<br />
them. She was charged and will have<br />
to appear in court and face a fine for<br />
caring for wildlife without a licence.<br />
Now, this is someone who has been<br />
working with the ministry for the past<br />
two years in order to meet its requirements<br />
for an authorization to care for<br />
wildlife. She had submitted an application<br />
more than three months ago for<br />
a licence she was told would take two<br />
weeks to process.<br />
She took these animals in because<br />
of the desperate people who had contacted<br />
her when they couldn’t find<br />
any other help. The babies had been<br />
found on the side of the road, next to<br />
their mother that had been killed by a<br />
car. The MNR tell people to “leave<br />
the animal there and let nature take its<br />
course” but what caring individual is<br />
going to do that and how is a car run-<br />
ning over a mother natural ?<br />
At the time of the MNR’s raid, she<br />
was giving a tour to a group of five<br />
and six year old Girl Guide Sparks,<br />
so you can only imagine the trauma<br />
for these children to see the animals<br />
carted away.<br />
The two young raccoons were<br />
since euthanized in what many have<br />
described as a mean and unwarranted<br />
action to send a message to the public<br />
that they should not attempt to show<br />
compassion for wildlife in distress.<br />
The Public is Not Being Served<br />
by the MNR !<br />
Most people across the province<br />
want to see humane help for wildlife.<br />
Many people go to extraordinary<br />
lengths to find help for young animals<br />
in distress. Michaël remembers taking<br />
an injured bird to a bird hospital many<br />
years ago and seeing all the wonderful<br />
help that was provided to them, there<br />
were even tiny little orthopedic casts.<br />
Extensive development and habitat<br />
loss is increasing the demand for<br />
these wildlife care services.<br />
Ontario was once the envy of<br />
other North American cities in having<br />
leading wildlife rehabilitation programs,<br />
but more than half these volunteer<br />
programs have been forced to<br />
discontinue their service to their community<br />
because the MNR imposed<br />
harassing, inhumane and unworkable<br />
regulations.<br />
One rehabilitator indicated that a<br />
MNR officer once told her that ‘their<br />
clientele didn’t approve of wildlife rehabilitation’.<br />
It turns out that the ministry’s<br />
‘clientele’ is not the taxpayers<br />
of Ontario but those who buy licences<br />
for sport hunting purposes.<br />
Move Wildlife Rehabilitation out<br />
of the MNR.<br />
The MNR appears incapable of<br />
overseeing wildlife rehabilitation because<br />
it is funded by hunting, fishing<br />
and trapping licenses and its focus is<br />
on “managing” populations of “game”<br />
animals for consumptive use. This<br />
ministry does not want to encourage<br />
people to see individual animals<br />
as worth caring for and saving. The<br />
conservation ethics and humane values<br />
wildlife rehabilitators represent<br />
simply do not fit with this Ministry’s<br />
outdated mindset.<br />
The majority of the Ontario public<br />
want help for wildlife. It is simply<br />
not right that 94% of the Ontario public<br />
that do not hunt should be frustrated<br />
by the policies and attitudes of<br />
a government agency that represents<br />
only 6% of the population.<br />
We’ve been frustrated many times<br />
to read of culls by the MNR, truly tens<br />
of thousands of dead animals paid for<br />
by our taxes. Why ? well with Cormorants<br />
around Pelee the shooting<br />
and maiming of tens of thousands of<br />
birds is because fishermen don’t want<br />
to compete with the birds and the<br />
MNR is happy to comply. Personally<br />
we know more bird lovers than fishermen,<br />
and for that matter we’d be surprised<br />
if most recreational fishermen<br />
would support killing tens of thousands<br />
of birds so they can catch a bit<br />
DEC 2011<br />
more fish.<br />
We find it encouraging that the<br />
McGuinty Liberal government has<br />
promised to finally fix the wildlife<br />
rehabilitation crisis, stating that “we<br />
will enhance programs that encourage<br />
wildlife rehabilitators to seek authorization<br />
in Ontario, and promote<br />
wildlife rehabilitation as a valuable<br />
voluntary resource in the province”.<br />
Fulfilling this promise will require<br />
that wildlife rehabilitation be transferred<br />
to a department that responds<br />
to the concerns of the vast majority of<br />
Ontarians. We hope that our MPP Yasir<br />
Naqvi (whose work has impressed<br />
many OOS citizens) will work on<br />
behalf of this goal, and have written<br />
about this to him.<br />
We believe the government should<br />
take wildlife rehabilitation out of the<br />
MNR, and should bring the MNR up<br />
to modern wildlife management standards.<br />
Stats show an overhleming majority<br />
of people care more about wildlife<br />
than about killing wildlife, and we<br />
believe the government should reflect<br />
this in the way they operate.<br />
Just before ending this month’s<br />
column, we briefly switch gears to a<br />
separate topic: We met David Chernushenko<br />
in a store with his biking<br />
helmet on and so didn’t recognize him<br />
– what a great example he is setting<br />
even in the cold ! We hope David will<br />
start to get involved in protecting the<br />
“9 Rosedale” house as local citizens<br />
have asked him to – we need David<br />
to be outspoken and to help bring balance<br />
to the developer / community.<br />
Currently there is a large imbalance<br />
favouring developers and it is damaging<br />
our community and our city –<br />
David, let’s start by rectifying the case<br />
of 9 Rosedale and then let’s protect<br />
the community as a whole.<br />
The Squirrels are gathering food<br />
for the winter in their low energy<br />
freezers under the snow. Have you<br />
noticed they are getting plump ? they<br />
probably had fun on halloween !<br />
We were glad several people from<br />
OOS have been writing us, we love to<br />
hear your ideas and comments – these<br />
inspire us to write on specific topics<br />
and we always learn from you. Écrivez-nous<br />
: taniamich@gmail.com
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