Nature alone cannot defend itself against humans
KAMLOOPS — Few are the things able to ward off the ugly memory of the growing garbage revealed by the melting snowpack. Where garbage lies, there are also cheery birds such as robins and meadowlarks, and serious ones too like hawks and owls. There are deer, bears, coyotes, and cougars. The muffled sound of a big bird’s wings flapping away over your head, or the many animal tracks you find fresh every morning have a magnificence that erases, for a moment, all that’s ailing the very ground you stand on.
The concept of nature is not just a definition; it comes with a promise we ought to heed if we are serious about life. There are many layers to the promise. Garbage for starters. More appears with each warm day that melts the snow.
Here in Kamloops and the surroundings, the garbage issue is a recurrent pain. I often write about Peterson Creek Park because that is where I spend many of my mornings hiking with the dog. There are many types of refuse that lie on the main trail, including food and beverage containers, straws and bagged poop (alongside bag-less mounds.) There are discoloured plastic shards of ‘who knows what that one was’ peeking from the bunchgrass, in striking and disgraceful opposition to new grass appearing.
There is also the grasslands and Tranquille beach. They are littered with garbage. In some places, such as the Dewdrop, the patches of refuse appear often, plastic shotgun shells included, and lots of them, according to Frank Ritcey, Provincial WildSafeBC Coordinator.