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@ ~ Friday. June 14, 1991 - North Shore News

Frontier shoot-ups and condoms for

YUP, WE‘RE close to the frontier, here on the True North

Shore Strong and Free. And sometimes the frontier seems
to be winning — relentlessly rolling back civilization, or

what passes for it.

There were two very unfunny
broad-daylight smash-and-grab
jewelry store robberies a few days
apart, not in small and isolated
stores but in the heart of the big
and busy Capilano and Park
Royal malls, patronized by thou-
sands of shoppers every day.

This is the modern equivalent of
the old shoot-’em-up stuff when
the gang rode into town, robbed
the bank, and lit out for the hills
before the sheriff could latch up
his gun belt. (Even if that only
happencd in the movies, it hap-
pened.)

That’s damned serious stuff —
lucky no one was killed by the
shotgun blast during the Capilano
heist — and, in passing, honest
citizens would feel a lot better
knowing that if the crooks were
caught they'd actually be punish-
ed.

But that would be too much to
hope for, since we now operate in
an atmosphere exactly opposiie to
Trontier justice, whatever that’s
called.

Still, living close to untamed
Nature has its amusing ironies.
Like the coyote problem — which
of course from the coyotes’ point
of view is the mankind problem.

Possibly it is irresponsible of
me. Possibly if my own beloved
dogs were attacked I'd reverse
myself. Possibly there isa
renegade soul in ail of us.

But, putting aside the possibles,
I’m amused — asic, more to the
point, strangely heartened — that
the cayotes of the North Shore
have so totally outflanked and
outsmarted the human beings.

It is a bit startling to many

NV student
wins BCIT

Entrance
Award

A GRADE 12 student at North
Vancouver’s Carson Graham Sec-
ondary school has won the B.C.
Institute of Technology (BCIT)
President’s Entrance Award.

The $1,708 award to Benjamin
Wright is equal to a full year’s tu-
ition. It is presented to students
entering BCIT trades and techno-
logy programs directly from B.C.
secondary schools.

Recipients are selected on the
basis of combined high achieve-
ment with active participation in
school and community activities.

Wright is planning to attend
BCIT this September and enrol in
the aircraft maintenance engincer-
ing program.

BCIT is one of Canada’s
leading educational institutes for
advanced technology training in
business, engineering, health
sciences and the trades. More than
9,000 full-time students and
37,000 continuing-education stu-
dents attend BCIT annually.

Lunch time

Fashion Show
Tuesday, June 18th

Fashions

1 Fhe Pumblesise Inn

i, 922-0101
‘7 1495 Marine Drive, West Vancouver

Trevor
Lautens

GARDEN OF BIASES

newcomers to learn that, along
with all those huge swatches of
forest on the North Shore, there
come certain co-sharers of the
verdure that you don’t have to
deal with on Avenue Road. Like
bears and coyotes.

The poor bears, to the eternal

shame of the provincial govern-
ment authorities, were brutally
Slaughtered by the fuundreds —
more than SO) in the Lower
Mainland — when they came
down frem the higher slopes five
years ago locking for food.

f was never so ashamed of niy
own animal vroup — the one that
piously prattles about saving the
environment, bul, when it moves
into the edge of the wilderness,
insists cn wiping out the parts of
the environment that’s inconve-
nient. Such as the bears.

t know, the next thing you'll
tetort is Whether I feel so tender
about saving the mosquitces. Do
not demand consistency from me
on this issue. Consistency is the
bugbear, as opposed to the black
bear, of little minds.

So it was Nature's turn to get
one back at us. This the coyotes
have done.

The plan was to live-trap them
and relocate them. But the pro-
vincial environment ministry
didn’t catch a one of them.

Good for them, I say. I sym-
pathize deeply with North Shore
people who have lost pets to
them. But the brutal fact is that
this is a coyote-eat-cat world. We
and our pets have moved into wild

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UGHTING

animal country. Some of us make
atlowances for that, and some
want to Kill every raccoon
whenever their garbage is knocked
over,

For my part, when [see a
coyote trotting along Marine
Drive at dawn, as | have now and

coyotes

Htis a brilliant idea, suggested
by another issue that has absessed
our North Shore communities in
recent Months: condoms in the
schools.

The school boards have decid-
ed, correcdly, nut to install con-
dom machines in the schaots, But

44/ feel relieved that arrogant
mankind hasn't yet completely
mastered Nature. #9

then — once niy fat dog Sam took
after one, deaf to my advice to lay
off, and came back five minutes
later puffing but satisfied that
he’d done his duty — | feel
relieved that arrogant mankind
hasn’t yet completely mastered
Nature.

And, if we really must control
what a North Shore News
headline unkindly called these
“*predators,’’ 1 offer this plan,
free.

surely this issue was misplaced. It
was merely waiting for the ob-
vious marriage with that other
issue — coyote overpopulation.

Yes, friends and fellow citizens
of the North Shore, this is what
we need:

Condoms for coyotes.
It’s an idea we could run with.
Yip! Yip! Yip!

FES
enoresson

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