Letters

Cat Calls

Dear Editor,
Thank you for publishing Craig Vetter’s important piece (“Of Cats and Birds,” Spring ’05) highlighting cats threatening native wildlife.

People with any feeling for animals who helplessly watched, as I did, a neighbor’s cat dash off with a waterthrush in its well fed jaws will make the effort necessary to keep their cats indoors. Doing this also protects allegedly beloved pets from injury and death by large animals, automobiles, and cruel people, and from kidnapping for animal experiments. I hope this fine article inspires those with “outdoor cats” to take the time and trouble to acclimate their animals to a pampered life indoors.

Charlotte Adelman
Wilmette, IL

Dear Editor,
Craig Vetter’s article was thoughtfully written. It’s what has been left out that’s doing the damage. In this article, there was not even a mention of habitat loss, and no mention of pesticides nor disease. If any further cat-related bird loss “studies” are going to be touted as fact, they have to be proven beyond habitat loss, disease, pollution, and other predators, including other birds!

But yes, feral (and outdoor family) cats are a problem, though the numbers printed in Mr. Vetter’s article of both they and potential bird loss from them seem really excessive. Mr. Vetter’s article should have been about keeping cats in during birding season, because they are part of the problem. That’s all.

We all need to educate ourselves (especially cat people) on how to govern pet populations. It isn’t a new problem, but I’m now one more person who’s going to poke her head into potential solutions and see if I can help. I’m awake, and that was the ultimate point of Mr. Vetter’s piece. For that I thank him.

Kevin Elizabeth Morrison
Chicago, IL

Deer and Big Preditors

Dear Editors,
In “Finding Common Ground in a Landscape of Deer and People” (Winter ’05), William Lynn hinted that returning large predators to some of the local wild areas could be a component of a long-term solution to controlling deer numbers. According to figures from Michigan Department of Natural Resources, hunting is by far the most effective means of reducing the deer population on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, surpassing the total taken from local wolves by about nine times. They suggest that even these free-roaming predators do not have a significant impact on deer numbers.

With regard to getting conservationists and animal advocates to work together without hostility, I think a first step would be for both groups to enunciate what their goals are for natural areas in the Chicago area. Are conservationists working to restore native habitat in selected, isolated areas to the point where they are mostly living museums of what used to be? Or are the goals grander, where the natural areas are actual functioning ecosystems that don’t need constant human intervention to maintain biodiversity? On the other hand, is it the goal of animal advocates to simply prevent deer from being killed because they are cute and gentle, or is there some higher purpose in mind that is seeking a return to a more natural balance?

William Carroll
Evanston, IL

Spring Fling

Dear Editor,
To chase away the winter blues, I can’t imagine a better place than Trout Park Nature Preserve in Elgin. Go as early as February. On Valentine’s Day, I took a stroll through Trout Park and spotted the blooms of skunk cabbage.

If you enter the park at the main entrance at the top of the hill in late April or early May, you will be greeted with beautiful patches of Virginia bluebells and twinleaf. Last spring had the most wonderful display of this seldom-seen plant. It’s a treat to see even a few twinleaf plants in bloom, since their fragile petals last barely a week; last year, over 200 blooms were open at the same time! Find out for yourself next year.

Mike Lawler
Vernon Hills, IL