Editor:
Re: Respect, don't destroy, the local wildlife, letter to the editor, Dec. 30
It is obvious after reading the letter by a relative newcomer to Delta that this person exhibits a lack of understanding and exposure to rural activities before moving to our wonderful area.
Delta, thankfully, still has a large agricultural component to its land base, which also supports wintering waterfowl on the cultivated fields and in and around the natural marshes.
During a few months of the fall and early winter, there is limited, tightly regulated waterfowl hunting season, which closes for ducks on Jan. 20.
The comment of "destroying" wildlife is an incorrect assumption, a mistake commonly made by those who have had a sanitized, urban upbringing.
Those "lifeless" ducks harvested by the hunters would (by law and by personal choice) be taken home and prepared for consumption, thus not "destroyed."
I will end on this quote from A Sand County Almanac, written by Aldo Leopold, considered the father of modern conservation philosophy: "There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace."
Welcome to the great municipality of Delta, rich in the rural traditions associated with farming, fishing and wildlife.
Lance Goyter
