THURSDAY JULY 5, 2018
VOL. 44, NO. 25
$1
including GST
Watch for more online at: WWW.BOWENISLANDUNDERCURRENT.COM
DEAR BOWEN DEER
The ungulates ravage island gardens, but you can fight back with an easy recipe.
CANADA DAY CELEBRATION NEW CHARITY
We have pictures from the annual Crippen Park party in Bowen Beat.
Bowen Island Health Centre Foundation has been granted charity status.
The dog who wouldn’t come in from the cold
Eight years ago, Peanut was found with a collar but apparently no home. Today, she has a home.
BRONWYN BEAIRSTO EDITOR
The Bowen Island Recycling Depot (BIRD) has an unusual tenant. No one knows where she came from, or quite how old she is. But visitors may catch a glimpse of scruffy black fur as Peanut roams around dumpsters and woods. If Peanut had “people,” Dave and Louise McIntosh would be it. The long-time recycling centre leaders were the ones who found her, scrounging for food in a dumpster, about eight years ago. There was a tarp covering the dumpster and, attracted by the smell of food, Peanut had apparently walked onto the tarp just far enough to fall in. “That was the first time we realised we had a dog,” says Louise. Continued on page 3
As a grand finale to Bowen’s Canada Day celebrations, the firefighters hose down Island kids with their pump truck. Here, an excited Trent Bristow runs through the spray, his twin brother Hayden following him in the background. Photo: Bronwyn Beairsto
Bowen Vet closisng its doors for at least a month BRONWYN BEAIRSTO EDITOR
If you heard loud howls and growls (at least over Facebook) this weekend, it’s because Bowen Veterinary Services will be closed for all of July, and likely longer. In a surprise announcement on Facebook last Friday, Bowen’s
only 24-hour emergency vet clinic said that it would be shuttering its windows in preparation for the August-expected opening of Mountainside Animal Hospital in North Vancouver. “By August, All Bowen patients can be seen at Mountainside as your history, files and medical records will be there as they were on Bowen.
“Later in the fall, Bowen Vet will reopen again as a full-service, daytime hospital. Critical cases that present on Bowen will be transferred to Mountainside where they can receive more advanced treatment and minute by minute intensive care,” said Bowen Veterinary Services in a Facebook post. The large new facility will service
much of south-western B.C. Bowen staff will be doing training on the north shore in preparation for the new hospital, and therefore won’t be available on the island. “We just don’t have the man power to stay open,” said head veterinarian Alastair Westcott. “We’ve had to make a change temporarily.” Continued on page 5