MidlandToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via our website. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to an article about ‘no mow’ zones, published Aug. 23.
I’m writing about J.T. Payette Park, what used to be a soccer field and then a Canada goose pooping ground and now a no-mow zone.
The article fails to mention the rest of the wildlife story. While it is nice to see nature in town, this has gone somewhat wrong, also. Cats are being attacked by the mass fox population. Foxes are now raiding trash cans, patrolling the area of Edward and Jeffrey streets in search of food. They have exhausted all others like squirrels and raccoons and are now working on the cats. A cat was attacked on my front lawn while I was on the lawn trimming a bush. I’m on Anne Street. We can’t let our small dogs out in the backyard as the foxes often come for a drink in the pond.
Great for the moths, butterflies, bees, other important pollinators, snakes and rodents, not to mention mosquitoes and flies.
Also, it does not address the loss of park space, which is used despite not having sports. Many older folk walk, toss a Frisbee or just walk a dog. Kids lost a spot to kick around a ball or just play around chasing one another. I walked this park with my dogs daily until the cutting stopped. Now my dogs get ticks there.
Wouldn’t it just be better to stop development of new homes without trees, like west of County Road 93 by the angels? Perhaps the bears would stop coming into town, too.
Poor planning, lack of thought of each side, all just one-sided. What we don’t need is densely packed-in housing eliminating existing, well-balanced nature. Humans can’t create nature unless they leave.
John Marskell
Penetanguishene
