Start eradicating invasive wall lizards
Dear mayor and council:
Please add wall lizards to the invasive species likely invading North Cowichan as you read this.
They are native to Italy and other countries but apparently have an alarmingly firm foothold on Vancouver Island, and are already present in South Cowichan.
I implore council to add this lizard menace to our list of environmental bylaw invasives to be found and killed — using effective methods prescribed by invasive-species’ scientists and other experts — before more of our municipality’s native flora and fauna suffers from wall lizards’ voracious ravages.
Please do not delay in addressing this lizard plague. Please educate the public about it too.
Our ecologically threatened valley is already suffering the folly of not snuffing large invasive bullfrogs after a biologist warned our CVRD board of the bullfrogs’ presence a decade or so ago.
Our board sadly nixed the biologist’s fact-packed request for a mere $400 daily to eradicate the giant bullfrogs. The destructive critters are now omnipresent in Cowichan’s lakes, rivers, ponds and streams.
We now have a chance to start early in eradicating wall lizards. Please act now, and ask our CVRD board and Duncan city council to do the same.
Peter W. Rusland
North Cowichan
