It’s a significant minority hassling Curio Bay wildlife
Just read your article about Curio Bay penguins (January 10).
As local residents and tourist operators from Curio Bay we have just heard that a number of campers over New Year were evicted due to having dogs with them while camping even after signing-in declaring that dogs were not allowed.
Also I have had to have words with a Southland school group which was searching for penguins in a nesting area and also taking fossils with them as souvenirs.
DOC has said only 1 to 2 per cent of visitors are causing trouble.
Well, 100,000 people visit Curio Bay per year; that’s 1000 to 2000 people. This is a significant number of issues.
We have gone to the annual meeting of the South Catlins Charitable Trust which manages the Curio camping ground and have brought to their attention that people have been getting too close to wildlife and that they need to restrict access when there are no wardens on duty.
We get guests commenting weekly that people are hassling wildlife at the petrified forest.
We understand that the decline of the yellow eyed penguins (hoiho) on the mainland is due to many unknown factors but we should take action where we can to protect this rare penguin.
We feel DOC and trust have failed to listen to their community, at the expense of the yellow-eyed penguin.
Nick and Dani Stratford and that the vast majority of such bills fail, but does this make voluntary euthanasia morally wrong?
Yes, if you consider that New Zealand was wrong to give women the vote in 1893, because all other countries denied half their populations the vote.
And consider homosexual law reform. In 1900 male homosexuality was illegal in the vast majority of countries, despite the biological fact that homosexual orientation is as much part of a person’s nature as left-handedness.
But in the last hundred years laws in 118 countries have caught up with biology, leaving only 74 languishing in the moral dark ages.
The world in in the early stages of acknowledging the ultimate human right, the right to die at a time of one’s choosing.
Stephen Francis is on the wrong side of history. Martin Hanson