Editor:
Living in the Bow Valley means living with wildlife.
That calls for a careful balance that protects wildlife and their habitat while providing reasonable opportunities for people to live their lives here.
Most Canmore dog owners are here because they love the Rocky Mountains and its wildlife and strongly support protecting wildlife habitat.
Most also live here because they love the Rocky Mountain outdoor lifestyle. Walking your dog off-leash on a wooded mountain trail is a wonderful and integral daily part of that lifestyle.
Canmore dog owners accept that increasing human development pressures on wildlife mean that we can no longer take our dogs off-leash on serious mountain hikes in the Rocky Mountain national parks. But the Quarry Lake dog park trail is the last remaining place to take your dog for an off-leash mountain walk.
Most Canmore dog owners, I believe, will happily accept clear delineation of an off-leash dog walking trail with clear signs (current signs are contradictory, indicating a trail is both off-leash and on-leash).
But leaving only a fenced field for off-leash dogs is too draconian and conflicts dramatically with the deeply-held values of Canmore’s Rocky Mountain loving, wildlife loving, dog-owners.
Harrie Vredenburg
Canmore
