NOTE: This appeared on my Facebook page today. I really think I shouldn't use social media at all, as it seems to take me to a place I don't want to go. No one reads it anyway, do they? But today some shit went down that I really needed to write about, for myself if for no one else.
I don’t usually post rants on social media, but something happened today
that I have to report on. We love to walk around Como Lake in Coquitlam, an
urban park full of wildlife and old guys fishing and young kids prancing around
and people just generally strolling along in the peace and quiet. But when we
arrived for our usual peaceful stroll, I heard this godawful noise – a loud,
harsh, sustained buzz, even more irritating than those awful drone sounds – and
then I saw this streak of “something” speeding over the water, so fast I could
barely take it in.
I had never seen a model/remote control boat move that fast, rocketing
from one side of the lake to the other and making a sound so loud you could not
tune it out. Four guys were sitting on the shore on lawn chairs taking turns
operating this thing, chuckling and guffawing away like 8-year-olds doing
something naughty – but it got worse. The guy taking his turn at the controls
ran the model boat right up behind a Canada goose which was sitting peacefully in
the water, perhaps even asleep. It startled and took off a nanosecond before
the evil thing hit it.
I strode up to the giggling group of grown men and said, “I’m going to
report you for this. You’re harassing the wildlife in a public park, and that
is NOT allowed.” The guy looked a tiny bit sheepish and said, “OK, I won’t do
it again.” (I think he had been doing it for some time.) But I had more to say.
“The geese are nesting right now. They’re vulnerable. This is a safe place for
them, a sanctuary. This (and I began to cry) HURTS me to see.” The sheepish guy
sort of mumbled a half-assed apology, then went right back to assaulting the
lake and all the rest of us with the
noise and the hurtling speed.
Every once in a while the thing wiped out, spun around in the water and
then reversed direction. It was going at such high speed it was literally flying
above the surface of the water, so what would happen if it really flew out of
control and hit someone? The geese weren’t the only ones in danger – there was
a group of old men trying to fish and have a nice social gathering, and the
atmosphere was completely ruined.
Bill was so upset he stalked off, but I ran into another trailwalker who
told me they had actually covered up the
prominent sign saying, “WARNING: No motorized craft or remote control models
allowed” with a COAT. No kidding, so they think if the sign is covered up it’s
okay? The trailwalker and I commiserated for a while, then I noticed the racket
had suddenly stopped, and a few minutes later the four idiots had vacated, but
left the coat (a child’s coat, which they had probably found lying on the
trail) hanging over the sign. I took it down and tacked it up on a neutral
area, thinking maybe someone would come back for it.
But I was astonished at the – what? Why is it OK for a model craft
hurtling along at incredible speed to take a run at a living creature? Isn’t
this lovely urban park something of a sanctuary for the birds? This particular
lake attracts whole colonies of Canada geese, and soon
we’ll be seeing plump fuzzy goslings floating around in the lake. I have no
doubt these guys would love to take out a gosling or two, or maybe even the
whole brood. If I ever see those bozos again I will report them, or maybe I
should report them right now.
I don’t want to be a complainer, and there’s too much ranting going on
in the world right now, but this was atrocious behaviour in so-called grown
men. I suppose the rest of the time they’re out in the woods bringing down elk
and deer with rifles, drinking beer and guffawing at the sight of a magnificent
animal sinking to its knees, shot dead.
