Welcome to 2014.
The Rocky Mountain Outlook wishes everyone a safe, healthy and prosperous new year.
Based on the incredibly sour note 2013 ended on, with a ruckus caused by a miniature horse and off-leash dogs being attacked by cougars, then two cougars killed in a Silvertip yard after they attacked a dog, it shouldn’t be too difficult to start this new year off on a firmer, more positive footing.
As much as anything, these cougar/dog incidents reaffirm the fact that we do indeed live in a wildlife area. It also reaffirms the fact that some of that wildlife resides at the top of the food chain.
The attacks also confirm that with cougars there is no “time out” as with bears that den up for the winter. Cougars are always out there, hungry, looking for an easy meal, doing what comes naturally. There is no period of several months when a person can relax their vigilance when it comes to cougars on the prowl.
These cougar/dog incidents illuminate another important aspect of life in the Bow Valley – the whole place is a wildlife corridor to some degree and we should treat it as such. If we weren’t here, let’s face it, wildlife would have the run of the place as they have throughout history.
With a river like the Bow running through the valley, if all the buildings and people weren’t here, it would be a wildlife version of the Trans-Canada Highway.
That’s why it shouldn’t really surprise anybody that citizens and their animals keep running into wildlife. It’s also why Canmore council needs to pay due diligence when it comes to further development that could erode or encroach into new areas identified as wildlife corridors.
Really, the entire valley seems to be a pinch point for wildlife movement, why pinch it even more?
But enough about the ongoing issue of wildlife/human/pet interactions. Happily, it actually didn’t take long for something positive to occur in our valley at the start of this new year. On Tuesday (Dec. 30), Glousterman Jamie McDonald entered the Bow Valley (see page 8) as part of a cross-Canada run to raise funds for children’s hospitals.
As the new year chimed in, he was still heading westward, raising funds and awareness as he goes. We should all attempt to carry his positive attitude forward, through the upcoming Alberta Winter Games (which still needs volunteers), through cheering our Olympians on as they battle the world’s best in Sochi and through the continuing saga of post-flood projects.
Where do we sign up?
Under the heading Taxpayers’ Money Wasted, we’d like to know where it is that our Department of National Defence posts high-priority items like having someone conduct a study of superhero capabilities.
Somehow, the nabobs in charge of the research arm of defence thought it worthwhile to shell out $14,000 for just such a study as a method of winning hearts and minds. Sounds more like a new episode of Agents of Shield than a government-sponsored study.
This massively important, detailed study took in a whole 150 online individuals to find out if superheroes can fly through the air, see through walls, hear whispers from miles away, become invisible or walk through walls.
For a defence department that had to borrow desert camoflage when we sent troops to Afghanistan it seems a stretch to see how this study will help in any way, shape or form with winning hearts and minds.
Mind you, for $14,000, RMO would be willing to throw our entire staff into an online survey of 150 individuals who would like to discuss similar, useless trivia.
