I have spent a number of wet, muddy mornings walking out to the Bowerman NWR
with my wife (not a birder) and kids. We wore rubber boots.

The boots cost $30 a pair ($12 for the kids' boots). Let's take some
personal responsibility for our birding, for our impacts, and for all of
our activities. I can't see spending that much tax money for a walkway
of any sort - boardwalk, gravelled path or paved walkway.

Realizing that the airport, etc is built on fill, anyway, there's not a
lot of 'habitat' to protect in not building a boardwalk. But, building
any sort of walkway out there will certainly increase pedestrian traffic,
will put more people out onto the flats, and end up stomping more habitat
down as well as harassing the avifauna (no, I don't think a little fence
will keep people back any more than barricades keep touristas behind them
in any National Park).

For Pete's Sake - we don't need personalized, subsidized access to all of
our natural areas. The Parks are over-crowded, crime-ridden rural slums
as it is. We don't need to develop our National Wildlife Refuges into
the same situation. Refuges are for wildlife! If we build access for
people, people will come.

And the wildlife they came to study and 'adore'? Where will they go?

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, WA
anderjda at dfw.wa.gov