Hello, I am an avid birder …

Hello,

I am an avid birder (birdwatcher) from Simcoe County, Ontario. Although I am an hour or so away, I still make annual visits to Wasaga Beach strictly for the birdlife. Specifically, the Piping Plovers. If not for these few individuals choosing to nest on Wasaga Beach every year, I would have no reason to visit the town in the summertime. And I know the same is true for many other birders.

While the Piping Plovers are a huge deal to me (I absolutely love watching them every year, they're very charismatic), I can't help but think about the bigger picture of this proposal. The thing that bothers me the most about this is the selling (or transferring, whatever) of our Provincial Park lands. Wasaga Beach Provincial Park is a key piece to Ontario's over 130 year old Provincial Park system and the park with the highest amount of visitation and we're ready to give up and lose that legacy? What will be next? How about transferring (selling) the Bon Echo Provincial Park pictographs? Or perhaps Algonquin's Barron Canyon? Why does the public (who funds these parks) need to keep them? Let's just build condos and apartments on every last one of Ontario's natural jewels. Is that the direction this is heading in? If parcels of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park can be transferred (for development, no doubt), then nothing else would surprise me.

Lake Huron shoreline, particularly the sandy beaches of Wasaga Beach and the shorelines of Bruce and Huron county boast Ontario's most globally unique ecosystems. We're extremely lucky to have natural shoreline of that quality but we're just too greedy and focused on ourselves to realize that.

Please reconsider.