1/15/2018 0 Comments Animal Highways by Hamish Todd Clinton Steeds CC
What about a highway for animals? Great greenbelts, Northgate or Southcenter wide. Five, ten, twenty acres wide, with highways and biways above. A future park, running the entire length of the country. No cars allowed. A great swath of land and waterways, protected from traffic and noise and fences, and cigarette butts and soda cans and candy wrappers. Some folks I met from Sequim were telling me the wild elk population is in danger. Couple of years ago, my wife and I saw those elk, roving harmlessly, dangerously close to someone’s spiffy new back yard. I saw then, the farmland being carved up and parceled out, in ever smaller parcels, and I knew those elk were in for hard times. And sure, people need some place to go, but what about the elk, what about the animals, the bobcat and the deer? Will we mall in America? Will we lay cement over every blessed thing? Connect every sprawling suburb, to every other suburb, until the country is nothing more than a labyrinth of highways and parking lots and shopping centers, and fast-food drive throughs? Look at the photographs from the turn of the century, the Denny Regrade; after the Gold Rush, Stevens Pass, the early days of the railroad. Look at the amazing feats of engineering. We blasted holes in the sides of mountains; moved mountains to make waterfront; chopped trees down the size of a nuclear submarines. It is obvious, man can do just about anything he wants to. But, when we build, or start to rebuild for our children and our grandchildren. For that part of ourselves that doesn’t care about the paychecks and the mortgage payments as much as they care about the planet, this idea may appeal to you. Why not re-route some of our highways, undam some rivers? It will cost less than a country with no wild places; no place to get lost or build a rope swing over the water. It will cost less than losing our natural history. There are alternatives; progressive city planning (see Portland, Oregon); land trusts; reclamation; new zoning laws that benefit everyone, not just motorists. Our twin stadiums and P. Alllen’s Rock n Roll Museum are all very nice, but already we have some of the worst roads in the nation and don’t even get me started on parking. Wouldn’t it be nice to see highways for wildlife. And the next time you’re up by LaConner and Sedro Wooley to look at the tulips, wouldn’t it be nice to see a herd of wild elk, still free to walk, unencumbered, without tripping over some pink stretched plastic lawn chair. Bio: Hamish Todd lives and works in Port Orchard, Washington
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