State, county should commit to more conservation
To the editor:
Now that the election is over (or mostly over) I would like to say, I am glad. Glad glad glad. Maybe now the conspiracy theories and hate-mongering will be sidelined for a while. QAnon may even abandon its mission (whatever that is) and Q (whoever that is) may have said all there is to say for now.
I did not understand the anti-socialist rhetoric. Are we not a socialist country already? Big Brother watches us, ad trackers follow us, and we are connected in toto. Soon they will be tagging us. We are told what is fashionable, what we can smoke, what to learn. How can we be free when even the animals are in cages?
Cities are expanding; the population is rising; farmers are selling their land for housing; vaccines keep us alive; one third of all plant life is non-native; and it’s never enough. We complain that China is hoarding our jobs, but who wants all that stuff to be made here? Production is filthy, and we are trying to keep the smell down.
So, why fear socialism? What do we have to lose? Most of what made this country great to begin with is gone. The songs of the Great Prairie are now the songs of urban life. America the beautiful has become the land of agriculture not fit for human consumption, and not good for stock without artificial supplements. We have drained the swamps, quite literally, and other nations are doing the same. COVID is but a taste of what’s to come.
On the bright side, governments around the globe have been buying land for public use. Socialism at its finest! It won’t stop the annihilation of rain forests, but it can’t hurt. What does it matter who holds political sway in America, as long as we have an eye on the future? It’s not enough to think only of money, family, food, religion, politics and entertainment. Not anymore.
While we build, consume, export and burn our resources to feed the machine, let’s not forget to leave something behind. Let’s be selfish. Let’s bring life back to Hancock county and reintroduce quail, duck, turkey, grouse, weasel and everything else that God intended. Without nature, life is a virtual concrete jungle, a wasteland. Less we forget, our fathers left us with little more than corn-eating deer, mice-eating dogs and squirrels.
There are some places in Hancock County that have the makings for an excellent state park or fish and wildlife area. How it might happen, I surely don’t know, but others have done it. Philanthropic or wealthy landowners can get the ball rolling with DNR programs and a good book on habitat. Anyone can do it, and any concessions made are not really concessions at all. I fear that nobody cares, and we have a degenerated sense of beauty.
Every other county in the state has made significant contributions to recreation. Sure, we have the Pennsy Trail and a couple of nice little preserves, but it’s not exactly a heaping helping of environmentalism. I would like to see some fishing ponds or dove hunting fields come in. Anything. We are far and away the worst county in the state for conservation, with the highest number of extirpated species, and the lowest wildlife harvests. We are losing, and predator management is not the be all-end all of wildlife management.
Allan Cormick
Greenfield
