MIke Smith wrote:
>
>Every dog owner I know is very responsible, cleaning up after their dogs
>always. The large majority of dog owners are responsible about this;
>they know if they aren't their dogs will be kicked out of all parks, not
>just limited to leashes.
>
>That said, you can keep the nasty few from pooping up our parks by making
>a scene if you see someone leaving a fresh pile. Just ask them nicely,
>
>'Are you going to clean up after your dog?'

Wow, Mike, how often do you go to Magnuson Park? Would you like to back up
your claim with the offer to scoop up all the piles I could show you on a
nice Sunday afternoon? And, even better, stand between me and the dog
owners who I ask nicely to clean up after their dog? I don't do that any
more, because I've run afoul of some really defensive and even combative
people (perhaps warranted, I don't know). I fully agree with you that most
dog owners are responsible, but that leaves a pretty large scoopless
minority in this particular park (and other places I've been, for example
just this weekend at Dungeness). Maybe those little piles just have a
special attraction for my shoes, or maybe it's because I sometimes take out
groups of 20-30 people, and with that many people there can't help be at
least one stepping in dog poop, but it's hard to remember a class field
trip on which that distinctive aroma didn't enter at least one of the vans
some time during the day. I don't know if the old ecological maxim "where
there's shit there's life" is sufficient to ameliorate the problem.

And then there's the levee at the Skagit WRA after duck-hunting season.
Wow! Or Bow-wow!

I sympathize with dog owners and model airplane fliers, honestly. In fact
I often defend groups that many birders revile, because I firmly believe
they have their rights too. Unfortunately, many recreational activities
are a lot more disturbing to either the environment or other people or
both, so we birders do sometimes feel that we hold the moral high ground.
Nevertheless, there have to be places for these other kinds of recreational
activities. RVs go to their own special "dig up the hillsides and be
damned" places, and we nature-lovers can overlook them because we don't
oversee them. I suspect with our population density and our diversity of
approaches to the world, we're going to have to develop more and more of
these specialty places. Sigghhh.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416