One day last week, GS#1 was riding his bike in the creek valley, towing his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter (GGD#2) in what I call a bike buggy.
Suddenly she called out “Daddy, mean doggie.” He looked back and much to his astonishment, he saw a coyote running on the side of the trail, fairly close to the buggy. It had a rabbit in its mouth, dripping blood.
The coyote didn’t waver, even when GS made eye contact with it. There was a bend in the trail and it kept going along the creek while the bikers stayed on the trail. GS is used to foxes and deer in town but it was the first time he’d seen a coyote.
Bands of coyotes have either injured or killed two little dog in the area that I know about. What’s going on?
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The provincial government’s Special Committee on Timber Supply is making a whirlwind tour (three months) hoping the public and stakeholders will tell them how to mitigate the reduction of timber supplies given the end of the harvestable trees attacked by the mountain pine beetle. The issue has been around for a while. What took the government so long to get antsy about it?
The Cariboo Chilcotin Beetle Action Committee was formed in 2005 to find ways to deal with the problem. The province funded CCBAC (and other BACs). Has it taken seven years to figure out what that funding was for?
I have a special interest in this because five members of my family rely directly on trees for their livelihoods. My question is, if we keep cutting trees to protect today’s jobs, what happens when they are all gone?
It reminds me of former U.S. president George Bush’s plan to “make the pie higher.” Is anybody looking for a way to grow instant trees?
Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.
