Co-existence between walkers and disc golfers should be possible
By Letter to the Editor on October 14, 2021.
Editor,
While walking my dog at the Peenaquim off leash dog park the other day, I noticed the already cramped parking area was back-to-back vehicles also overflowing up the sides of the road. It turns out that disc golf players were parking there as well!
See, the disc baskets have already been erected and there are three oblong concrete pads that have been poured as well.
I find myself wondering why the planned (paved, as the dog run’s is not) parking that was to be for disc golfers as well as overflow parking for the gun range wasn’t done before the baskets were securely cemented into the prairiescape inhabited by meadowlarks, coyotes, deer and other creatures (these first three are just what I’ve seen/heard there over the years).
I wondered if that was the powers-that-be at City Hall making sure to “stake their claim” before a new council is elected. Just wondering.
I also find myself wondering why the fence that’s to be erected needs to be marring the natural look of the prairiescape even further.
Already a path has been cleared through a thicket (as a pass-through for golfers?) near one of the disc baskets, of what I know was coyote habitat closer to the river.
Why is a fence that wouldn’t supposedly be impeding the movement of wildlife necessary?
The coyotes were out there when I walked, as I heard their distinctive yipping in the bush, but in bush where they’d moved yet further out from their previous thickets near where at least two of the disc baskets are located now. While I ran my dog off-leash through the areas they were golfing, people didn’t seem to mind.
Some even greeted my dog when she went up to them and a group also had their dog with them while using the course.
It seems there could be a co-existence between dog exercisers and golfers and that people may actually find it to be a way to spend time with their dog(s) while also enjoying a disc golf game at the same time.
Just thinking.
Pat Derksen
Lethbridge
-1
That would be because the baskets were paid for by the disc golfers where the paved parking lot will be paid for by the taxpayer. Kinda funny considering my back alley has been falling apart for the last few years and all the city can manage is throw some asphalt down which promptly breaks apart because the piss-poor job they do fixing it. Sorry to break it to the genius at city hall who moved garbage collection to the front that has made 0 difference to the rate of decay in the back alley.