The Editor,
Re: "Don't disturb dike with development or with guns" (Letters The Tri-City News, Jan. 21).
Mr. C. Grindley-Ferris's comments regarding hunters on the Pitt Meadows dikes certainly seem to indulge in the horrific imagination of the writer. The "barbaric" act of hunting as Mr. Grindley-Ferris put it, should be put to better use by destroying unwanted pets?
I for one am more disturbed by a person who would even imagine such a thing than the duck and pheasant hunters using the dike during an open hunting season.
Hunters, anglers and other sportsmen contribute wholeheartedly to the environment, the game, and resources that they utilize with licence fees, volunteer work, direct funding, and the list goes on.
Many access points along the popular dikes in Pitt Meadows are signed to let people know that hunting may be taking place during legal open seasons, and the dikes are to be shared by the user groups that frequent them. Perhaps, these were overlooked by the writer.
Mr. Grindley-Ferris has a warped sense of the sportsmen on the Pitt Meadows dikes. My hat is tipped to the hunters and anglers who are willing to put the time, effort, and money into the environment, conservation and the economy while trying to put food on their table, in what is a very safe, family orientated, and respectful tradition in British Columbia.
If Mr. Grindley would like to go out for a walk, maybe a sterile stroll around the local shopping mall may be less shocking for him. Then again, there could be hoodlums around who have no respect for firearms and who are probably walking around the mall with a gun in their waist belt.
Better stay home Mr Grindley-Ferris - it's too dangerous out there.
Sacha Szymczak
Surrey
