Preserve wildlife
Dear Editor:
I could sense the concern of Lucy Blykowski in her reaction to seeing a wounded pheasant near Mark Clark Bridge. We do not know what happened to that pheasant, maybe a hunter or a car hit it, or did it fly into a power line or was it attacked by an eagle or a fox?
Nature can be cruel to our wildlife.
In fact more deer are killed on our roads than by hunters.
Pheasants were plentiful years ago. They disappeared for many reasons: lack of habitat, predators, weather, etc.
In South Dakota, pheasants were nearly wiped out by weather and farmers tilling prime habitat. Now with C.P.R., which allows land to grow new cover, there are nine million pheasants in South Dakota.
In the Skagit-Frazer Valley area, nearly 100,000 snow geese spend their winter. The nesting area and food supply can only provide for a little more than half these birds, as a result, starvation and disease often wipe out large percentages.
Hunters are often used to harvest our wildlife to keep them strong and healthy. This is done under supervision of the Department of Wildlife along with their biologist research and recommendations.
Hunters record their harvest as part of this game management.
The pheasants on Leque Island are pen raised by the game department and not by the agriculture department. The money to raise the pheasants comes from the hunter license fee. (I don’t believe any taxpayer money is used).
Most hunters respect wildlife and enjoy nature. Most are good stewards of our resources.
These pheasants are pen raised, to be harvested like turkeys for Thanksgiving or trout planted in lakes to be caught by fishermen.
As a teenager living in this area, I raised pheasants for my 4-H project and released them into the wild with the hopes of restoring the pheasant population.
Because of urbanization, lack of habitat and predators, these lovely birds were unable to survive. As a hunter and a lover of nature this saddens me.
Let us do all we can to preserve our steelhead, salmon, pheasants and other wildlife.
Donald Brekhus Camano Island
