Editor’s note: The following is one of the letters from students in teacher Jennifer Mansour‘s class at Learning Expeditions. The students are in grades 7 to 12. The first of their letters were published in last week’s edition of The Chief. More letters will be published next week.
If you would like to get your class involved in writing letters — includes a visit from Chief editorial staff — email [email protected].
H, my name is Isaiah and I’m a Grade 7 student here in Sea to Sky Learning Connections. I’ve noticed that there hasn’t been a lot of informative wildlife signs around Squamish. I think there should be more of these signs!
I sometimes drive around Squamish and I do not see many informative wildlife signs. When I used to go to the lakes, I would only see a few wildlife signs and I don’t think that’s enough. I would like to see more around places like 7-11, where there is food because bears and birds especially like digging through garbage.
More signs would warn people. For example, if people go to the lakes, signs could say “Don’t bring food that bears like and don’t leave food lying around.” You could still bring food, but just don’t bring as much because there is a higher risk of bears coming around. An ideal sign would have a bear digging through garbage and would say, “Don’t leave your garbage around.” There could also be signs that say, “Don’t leave your windows open because a bear might break into your car and steal your food.” And one of the reasons i think we should keep our windows closed while we’re not there is because a bear could easily break the gear stick and maybe set an airbag off. People opposed to this might say, “Signs are too expensive, whose going to pay for them?”
But, if we don’t address this, bears could be more aggressive and more on the lookout for food.
All I’m saying is that we need more wildlife signs. To conclude, this all proves that we should install more wildlife signs, but not a whole bunch.
Issiah Sorro
