Hi Tweets,

Ken Klimko writes:

>We came into the park along the land bridge causeway that connects Sea
>Island to Iona Island. The tide was quite high any many species of
>waterfowl were resting and feeding in the tidal marsh.
(snip)

>We arrived at the base of the South Jetty where there was a YVR (airport
>authority) yellow pickup truck with two men sitting inside dressed in
>camo and armed with shotguns. I walked up to the pickup to confirm that
>these men were armed, when quite quickly they sped down the road
>repeatedly blasting their weapon out of the passenger side window.
>Immediately all of the birds along the foreshore took off in a great
>array, ducks, geese, herons and shorebirds all took to flight. As the
>pickup was rounding the bend still blasting out of the vehicle, the
>marine division came in from the bay on a Zodiak also taking repeated
>shots with a shotgun. The Snow Geese flew south across the airport
>foreshore where a second YVR pickup truck drove down the airport dyke
>continuing the birage.

These people do or did have a kill permit from either the Canadian Wildlife
Service (federal) and/or the BC Wildlife Branch (provincial) to shoot geese
in the vicinity of the W end of the E-W runway, and presumably these were
from the same YVR section who were out killing gulls for practice or sport
not long ago.

If they are killing geese and/or ducks, it might be worthwhile for some
conservation group with guts to take on the Vancouver International Airport
Authority, a private corporation given extraordinarily broad powers by the
federal Department of Transport with which to operate YVR as a
virtually-unaccountable private fiefdom, to discover just what these YVR
personnel are doing with the carcasses to ensure that they're not being used
as a personal perk for the 'wildlife control' personnel. And if the YVR
personnel were outside the fence when they were doing this, there may be
grounds for charges, as I've been told that they have no authority beyond
the airport fences.

There's a couple of other aspects to this. First, YVR couldn't be in a worse
place: it's built *directly* across the Pacific Flyway: hundreds of
thousands if not millions of birds, shorebirds, raptors and waterfowl, pass
across its western airspace each year. Second, the problem of waterfowl use
is partly self-created: YVR mows the grass short around the runways,
providing *perfect* waterfowl grazing areas. Very dangerous, of course, to
have large waterfowl and the raptors which hunt them, around jet intakes
when landing or taking off. YVR now employs something like forty to fifty
people whose sole job is to roust wildlife from these areas. Sometimes the
noise of YVR staff detonating bangers and 'screamer' rockets is non-stop
from dawn to dusk. And I mean dawn to dusk literally: I've been on Iona when
it sounds as though YVR is being used as a rehearsal for Desert Storm.

Strange, though: it stops at dusk. I've often seen large flocks of geese,
and these aren't the world's smallest or lightest bird, heading in to graze
on the lawns around the eastern end of the E-W runway at night, just as
planes were landing from the east, and flying directly across the runways
just ahead of the incoming jets. I'm not an expert on bird-strikes, but I'd
guess that's trouble just waiting to happen.

>Many people were in the park standing, staring, with their mouths agape,
>unable to fully comprehend exactly what they had just witnessed.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Vancouver BC wildlife, Ken. After thirty
years of watching crap like this in this town, I can answer the question of
who actually does what to protect wildlife in Vancouver with two words.

Nobody. Nothing.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net

"She's psychic....we've decided to find it charming."
--Frasier