Editor:
Re: ‘Eagle trees’ toppled for public safety, May 21.
I stood and cried Friday, as I watched five healthy, magnificent fir trees be removed from the hillside on Victoria Avenue.
I stood, along with others, as the eagles circled above them, wondering where their homes were going. I am left thinking, “what is the point?”
I have never felt compelled to write a letter to the editor, but some things just get to you. I am deeply disappointed for our community that there was no bargaining point that this developer would agree to. Council tried; staff tried; neighbours tried. I shake my head and ask why.
I love my White Rock, and today I am deeply saddened for us and for the generations to follow.
Coun. Helen Fathers, White Rock
• • •
Monday night, I stopped by this Victoria Street lot and found neighbour Sandy MacNamee, very sad and frustrated guardian of the town’s Eagle-perch trees, with her lovely springer spaniel, Polly.
I’m told this property’s municipal easement contained a large percentage of White Rock’s nearly disappeared eagle habitat. I wonder how much view would have been lost by moving construction forward, by the depth of that easement?
Do we have to have to take it all?
I see here the sad evidence of how we value ourselves above the delicate balances present in the natural world; rather than mediating our wants and needs, in respect to the delicate health of Earth’s ecosystem, we pave a piece of paradise and deliver this present evidence of our grandchildren’s most meaningful future in White Rock – no eagles in their daily lives, as we cherish now.
Elizabeth McLoughlin, White Rock
