Salt Spring Conservancy is betraying trust

The Salt Spring Conservancy, like most B.C. conservancies, was created to protect the land, animals and environment. It is expected to respect the “specified” restrictions of a conservation covenant.

Specific restrictions in the covenant include: • No indigenous flora [this includes trees] or fauna shall be gathered or removed from the land. • No commercial or sport hunting, fishing or trapping shall be performed or permitted on the land. • No pesticides, including but not limited to herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, chemicals or toxic materials, are to be applied to or introduced onto the land.

If this is the basis of our local conservancy, why are they encouraging hunting of local wildlife on their properties on Salt Spring Island? It appears to be an obvious contradiction to the above tenets and it also contravenes the information that they supply online to attract like-minded financial supporters, in which they promise to protect wildlife.

As I am sure that many, if not most, of their supporters provide financial assistance on the basis of the above information, have the supporters been informed that their trust is being betrayed and how their funds are actually being spent?

The open invitation that has been extended to members of our local gun club on their website to kill animals for sport on conservancy property says: “A great arrangement — let’s take advantage of it.”

Personally, I doubt that the conservancy backers or the deer believe this is “a great arrangement.” John Callas Ganges