COYOTES: PROS AND CONS

Dear Editor:

I found Jennifer Dees' response to Sheila Habib's request for information uncomfortably patronizing. Rather than solutions, Ms. Dees offered only platitudes about the benefits of a healthy wilderness. If one can infer a solution from Ms. Dees' response, it appears to be that the main way to deal with coyotes in Marin County is to bolt the doors or move out.

Brendan Conner
Oak Park, Illinois

Dear Chicago Wilderness Mag:

I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your summer issue. The article regarding the impact of the gypsy moth was very "meaty" and informative. Thank you.

I especially enjoyed and support the response to the reader in California regarding "the coyote problem." I feel as if finally naturalists, environmentalists, conservationists, etc. are truly finding their "voices." How will responsible people who respect nature change society? By strongly and positively saying that everyone needs to be responsible for their actions and that nature is not just for the sole purpose of man, woman and child.

Gina Lettiere
Evanston, Illinois

IN FOR A LANDING

To the Editor:

I read with interest your words about "vacant land" in the Winter 2002 edition. I live just outside the area where the state of Illinois wants to build an airport. Our elected officials claim that some of their purchases would be of "vacant land" (nearly 26,000 acres!) for the airport. As you indicated, no land is truly vacant.

The area they want to destroy has native prairie, woodlands, and most important, farmland. I believe if you ask the farmers about their 1,000-acre farms they would not classify their property as "vacant." Yet the state wants to destroy this area to build an airport three times larger than O'Hare, an airport that not one airline supports and no one living in the area wants! Sensible growth and planning MUST occur. An airport that destroys 26,000 acres of farmland and 1,200 homes is NOT sensible. Let's recycle what we already have and utilize the Gary/Chicago, Milwaukee, and Rockford airports.

Where will we grow our food and where will the wildlife live if we continue to destroy the land? Once paved over, it cannot be returned to its original state. It's gone forever. The residents of Peotone, Beecher, and Monee moved to the country for a certain quality of life that cannot coexist with the noise, pollution, and urban sprawl that an airport would create. We do not want it ruined by the taking of our VACANT land.

Debbie Pignatiello
Monee, Illinois