Waiting to go South

FTLComm - Tisdale - Wednesday, October 15, 2003

For the days of endless sunshine these arctic residents build the nets, hatch their young and then as the lakes turn cold and the nights grow longer they gather together into enormous flocks to begin their journey to the Gulf of Mexico. But such a long journey need not be carried out in a rushed trip when there are warm days to gather up what is left from harvest in the fields of Saskatchewan. These are Snow Geese and their alternative coloured Blue Geese seen Saturday early evening just North of Tisdale. Their warning system will not let folks in a van with cameras closer then just the distance of buckshot. For each year they have to fly through a series of triple "A" on their way South. Now I could understand people harvesting some of these birds (about 1/3 smaller than a Canada Goose) if their dinner table needed food but these birds are shot "for fun." It is called "sport shooting." How remarkably uncivilised for humans to consider it sport to fire their shot guns at targets as numerous as these and who will obligingly form up in formations to over fly you so you can blast away wounded about five for every one killed. We can set aside the trouble this must cause animals who mate for life and do a much better job of maintaining their relationships than the hunters but consider the utter waste and foolishness of causing the death of an animal for "sport." (sport can be defined as "fun" or "recreation") To see the six pictures on the right just click on each one to see the full size ten inch image. Below is what the sky looked like Saturday evening without these marvels of continental migratory aviation.

Timothy W. Shire

images by: Andrew Shire

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