Batter up Nanaimo Pirates host exhibition game against Victoria Harbour Cats.
www.nanaimobulletin.com
TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015
PAGE 35
VOL. 27, NO. 21
City seeks regional strategy for geese BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Maude Nijskens, left, weeds rows of carrots at Wyndlow Acres Farm in Yellow Point alongside farm co-owner Isobelle Morris. Nijskens is one of thousands of people who travel internationally, trading labour for room and board with World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.
Organic farm network links travellers
I
FIELD WORK exchanged for room and board. BY CHRIS BUSH THE NEWS BULLETIN
Maude Nijskens, a 24-year-old woman from Belgium who just comp l e t e d h e r m a s t e r ’s degree in bioengineering, crouches in the soil on a Yellow Point farm to pull
weeds from a row of carrots. Wyndlow Acres is the fifth farm Nijskens has worked on since coming to North America in February. The last was a winery near Monticello, Utah. Nijskens was so impressed by the sparse population and a landscape of natural stone arches, sandstone buttes and canyons dotted with Anasazi ruins that she decided to double the length of time she planned
to stay. “It was a big vineyard in Monticello, in Montezuma Canyon,” Nijskens said. “It was my first time there and I decided to stay one month.” Nijskens is a WWOOFer, a member of the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms network that connects people wanting to travel the world with organic farm owners offering room and board in exchange for labour.
Isobelle Morris and her husband Ian Wyndlow have six hectares of their 22-ha farm planted with carrots, squash, corn, asparagus, potatoes – 55 crops in all – that are sold at farmers’ markets and through the Farmship Growers Cooperative. Wyndlow Acres is the first Canadian farm Nijskens has worked on and her first experience with all aspects of farm production. See ‘PROGRAM’ /7
Nanaimo city officials want to build a new regional team to help control Vancouver Island’s Canada geese population. The City of Nanaimo is about to call on governments and wildlife experts to join forces on a regional strategy to manage a persistent Canada geese problem. The move will see the new group look beyond municipal boundaries at the bird’s population numbers and the tools they can employ to control the geese, including relocation and a potential limited cull. A regional strategy makes sense with the resident birds moving between east Vancouver Island communities, according to Kevin Brydges, the city’s environmental bylaw enforcement If Nanaimo, Instead of five officer. for example, took an to deal with of us working approach the birds here, is it a futile effort considerapart, we’re ing it may get more trying to get birds from the north south Island? together and and “Instead of five of us work together. working apart, we’re trying to get together and work together,” he said. Canada geese aren’t a native resident bird to the Island. Young were transplanted in the 1960s and ’70s as part of an introduction program to Vancouver Island to boost wildlife viewing and sport hunting opportunities, a city report shows. They didn’t learn to seasonally migrate, with little opportunity to learn behaviour from mature geese and like other urbanized animals like deer and rabbits, lack the stressors of predators and being out in the wild. They’re becoming a public concern, with feces scattered on lake beaches, parks and damage done to agricultural lands and estuaries.
“
See ‘MEASURES’ /2
JEWELLERY SERVICE
GOLD RECYCLING
P. 250.585.1648 www.marshandson.com 3392 Norwell Drive, Nanaimo | Tues - Sat 10am - 5pm
DIAMOND RECYCLING