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Relocated raccoons kill pet chicken flock Craig Spence the chronicle
Loggers sports a huge hit Craig Spence the chronicle
The driving force behind the Sept. 6 loggers sports exhibition put on at the Transfer Beach Amphitheatre, Coun. Duck Paterson, hopes this year’s event will be a springboard for a bigger, better competition in 2016. “The feedback that I got is everybody was really, really happy,” Paterson said. A crowd of 2,000 showed up for the exhibition, which included events like pole climbing, hand sawing, chain sawing and axe throwing. Paterson said the crowd would have been bigger, but that rain earlier in the day may have discouraged attendance. It’s been five years since a loggers sporting event has been held in Ladysmith. The
Sept. 6 exhibit, which was sponsored by Otter Point Timber, featured four loggers. As well as entertaining the crowd, it raised more than $4,000 for the 2015 Tour de Rock Cops for Cancer fundraiser. Paterson said there’s an interest from competitors as well as spectators to see the show come back next year. “I know the fallers that competed were really impressed with the town,” he said. His goal now is to have a full-scale loggers sports competition held in Ladysmith, rather than an exhibition. “That’s the goal,” Paterson said. A day long event with up to 20 competitors is what he envisions. “It’s just taking what we did for the two-and-ahalf hours and blowing it up into a full day,” he said. See Loggers Sports, Page 3
Loggers sports were a big hit with the crowd of 2,000 that flocked to the Transfer Beach Amphitheatre Sept. 6 to watch events like the two-man handsaw race and the pole climbing event. Organizer Coun. Duck Paterson hopes Ladysmith can build on that success.
A woman whose flock of chickens was decimated by raccoons believes the culprits were trapped in Ladysmith then released near her home on Shell Beach Road. Emile Rice said the incident took place about six weeks ago, and that she and her neighbours are devastated by the violent way her ‘pets’ were killed. She and her family have been raising chickens ‘free-range’ in their yard for years, and have never had a problem. “They were just my pets,” Rice said. “Everybody used to come down and feed them.” But in one night the whole flock was killed, including her favourite, a 15 year-old rooster named Big. She was told later that someone had released a large number of raccoons in the area, and she has since seen raccoons prowling near her property and on the beach, something she’s never seen before. Rice said she’s not going to start a new flock. “I’m scared to replace them because the raccoons are still here,” she said. Manager of the Nanaimo BC SPCA Branch Leon Davis said it’s illegal to track and relocate raccoons or other forms of wildlife. “That’s one of the biggest concerns for us,” he said. “You’re upsetting the wildlife balance of that area.” Relocated animals can carry diseases; they would not be familiar with food locations in the areas they are transported to; if they’re mothers, they may have young left behind, who would starve; or they might dislocate wildlife already in the area. The injunction against relocating them would come as little comfort to raccoons, however. The proper procedure with trapped raccoons is euthanization. Not only is euthanization an outcome some people might find unpalatable, it can also be expensive to do properly and legally. Davis said it could cost between $150 and $200 to properly euthanize a raccoon. See Raccoons, Page 3
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