Dear Tweeters,

A Skagit County birding friend and I were out on Fir Island the other day, talking about the plan for the Game Range while searching in vain for snipe. Neither of us was sure whether the birding experience at the WMA would be enhanced or diminished by the breaching of the dikes. One thing we agreed on is that change is scary, and the ramifications of this particular change are hard to imagine.

As a non-hunter, I have little concern about the effect of this change on the Skagit hunting experience--but politics makes strange bedfellows. The effect of the breach upon certain of the huntsmen's quarry does concern me. Just where exactly will five or ten thousand Snow Geese--and tens of thousands more ducks--be expected to winter, if their current wintering area on Fir Island is disrupted by the change?

These creatures have a little more flexibility than salmon do, I suppose, since they have wings and don't need to winter in the exact same place every year. Still, I wonder whether we are robbing Peter to pay Paul. I hope that the Snow Geese, especially, are included in the decision-making process. There aren't too many places where one can see five-figure flocks of birds.

The important thing to remember here is that changes like this are nothing compared to those featuring asphalt and concrete. One farmer in Burlington, just west of I-5, is considering selling out: more stores, more traffic, more congestion, in lieu of fields full of swans. That is the kind of change we birders need to combat.



Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch

near Lyman (Skagit County), Washington

garybletsch at yahoo.com


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