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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Letter of the Day
Key to the ecosystem
Don Healy / Postmedia News Archives What appear to be Merlin falcons perch on an evergreen tree. (POSTMEDIA REGINA LEADER-POST)
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As much as I applaud the Free Press's efforts to introduce its readers to the natural wonders in their own backyard, the July 6 article Backyard bullies, bloodshed by Irene LoScerbo leaves me disheartened and frustrated.
All this piece manages to accomplish is to reinforce negative stereotypes of birds that have already suffered the slings and arrows (and pellet guns) of humans for not being the sweet and lovable, Disneyesque woodland creatures people seem to need nature to be in order to like it.
Merlins are important and remarkable members of their ecosystems. Close cousins of the peregrine falcon, whose population the city has worked hard to re-establish, merlins are skilled aerialists, reaching speeds of nearly 50 kilometres per hour and able to turn on a dime faster than the best fighter pilot. Their reign of "carnage," to which LoScerbo refers, is necessary to feed themselves and their young (unlike the thousands of birds killed every year by our cute and cuddly house cats).
They're also important in keeping the populations of non-native house sparrows in check so that our local species can eke out a living.
Grackles (also slighted in the article) may be noisy and a pest in some people's eyes. But they are very social, have complex courtship behaviour and have been known to work co-operatively with each other. They're also one of the few songbirds that can catch fish.
I'm assuming this article was intended to be a possibly humorous exploration by the average person of the nature in their own backyard. However, it was instead a negative and sometimes ill-informed maligning of already persecuted birds.
HEATHER HINAM
Winnipeg
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 14, 2012 A14
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