I have come to the conclusion that our once fair City has become nothing but a bunch of animal rights tree huggers and dicky-birders.
First it was the Barrhaven wild turkeys earlier this spring, and the whole City was abuzz. OMG, these irate wild birds are going to peck our eyes out!
And chaos ensued!
Then it was the Westboro squirrels, and the whole City was in an uproar. Evidently residents of this trendy, small-mammal hating part of town were live trapping squirrels and relocating them across the river to Quebec. (Because, of course, squirrels are considered ‘fur bearers’ and you cannot legally shoot them)
And chaos ensued! (They even started a bloody Twitter feed over it…)
And NOW, City of Ottawa naturalists are up in arms about a group of Jockvale Bridge barn swallows! What, a lowly bug loving barn swallow has thrown the proverbial wrench in a multi-million dollar bridge project??
That’s right, and you guessed it chaos ensued once again!!
For gawd’s sake people, I have barn swallows nesting in my trailer up in Cobden but HERE in the tree-huggingest City in the world, the barn swallow is considered Threatened??
How did the barn swallow make it on the threatened list now, you ask? (I was scratching my head over this one too) I mean, they’re not killing the swallows they’re simply removing the nests. There are plenty of other overhangs and clay left in the region to construct new ones.
As I explained during a chat this am on CHEZ 106 FM’s Doc & Woody Show, nowhere in the world is the barn swallow considered threatened except here in the tree-huggingest Province of Ontario..and being exemplified right here in the treehuggingest City of Ottawa!
My guess is that some Ottawa tree hugging Naturalist has confused Barn Owl with Barn Swallow…and placed them on an threatened list by accident. The Barn owl does, of course, appear on the Canadian Species at Risk list but nowhere did I find Barn Swallow.
Perhaps if I were to go outside and hug a tree reallllly hard, it would all come to me; in a flurry of emotion and clarity and this nonsense would somehow finally make sense!
Until then, think I’ll just crawl inside one of those Westboro live traps and get relocated to the QC side…
Outdoorsguy