I am saddened by this…

I am saddened by this proposal as I see it as another senseless and cruel way to address an inconvenience to a small group of self-interested people. Destructive they call the cormorant? This reminds of the day I stood watching a beaver from the window of my classroom as it endeavoured to build a lodge in the adjacent ravine. While viewing the same scene, a colleague of mine remarked on how destructive beavers are and barked out «the need to get rid of him before he causes more damage». I looked around at the outcroppings of all the houses around me from my newly constructed school on the fringes of the ravine and was reminded of how egocentric and short-sighted we are. Who is destructive? We need to learn from recent history. We need to remind ourselves why we had to reintroduce the wolf to Yellowstone and what happened to the Passenger Pigeon. Half of Canada's wildlife species are in decline and the effect of habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, invasive species and overfishing continue to contribute to their decline. We don't need to slaughter the cormorant. We need to educate humans on the importance of all the creatures we share this planet with and the role they play in our own survival and well-being. Each one is important because if they weren't, they would not be there in the first place. I believe education and a change in the human perspective is key. Although it may be a more complex solution, education is far reaching and long lasting and prevents the need for even more expensive programs required to repair damage done by impulsive and short-sighted solutions.