Letter to the Editor Horse brown

Friends of Animals President: ‘Trees are the Planet’s Lungs’ With Multiple Benefits for the Environment

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To the editor:

I’m unnerved when I hear that morbid sound of trees being dismembered, limb by limb until they’re pulverized into saw dust. It’s a racket outside my office window in Darien this morning. In the backyard of a home that abuts our parking lot, I can see a red band tied around the trunk of the huge tree, which a tree cutter in a cherry picker kills, branch by branch, without ceremony. I don’t know why people so easily kill trees, but it’s done with reckless abandon, and watching each limb cut and remain suspended in the air for a while incenses me. Last weekend, I heard the same jarring, tree-killing sound of a chainsaw in a neighbor’s yard on McKinley Street in Rowayton, and the weekend earlier, it interrupted a visit to a friend’s home in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

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Letter: Cutting Deer Population Won’t Help Reduce Ticks — Friends of Animals President

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To the editor:

Kudos to Doug Tallamy, entymologist and author of Bringing Nature Home, for helping to change people’s mindset across the country about the birds and the bees. He is educating people about how insects like moths and caterpillars are indispensable when it comes to biodiversity in ecosystems and that the best thing we can do for wildlife and the environment is plant native flowering plants, trees and shrubs in our own backyard. He brought his empowering and poignant message to the Darien Library Thursday evening and it was thrilling. But Tallamy veered out of his lane of expertise and undermined deer when the topic of ticks and Lyme Disease came up, and that was disappointing. Tallamy seemed unaware of a study conducted at Penn State University showing that deer exclusion in smaller areas is likely to amplify ticks and produce tick-borne disease hotspots where rodents are ubiquitous.

Darien Cops Website Coyote

Letter from Friends of Animals: Fencing, Not a Kill Permit, Is What’s Needed to Protect Pets from Coyotes

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To the editor:
The incident involving an attack on two dogs in Tokeneke is a most unfortunate event, but there is no reason why Darien residents should react by applying for kill permits from DEEP [the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection]. First, an invisible fence is not sufficient to keep dogs on one’s property protected because that electric fence won’t prevent other dogs, foxes or coyotes from entering one’s yard. There is fencing that will protect dogs and prevent wildlife from entering one’s property — but it’s five-foot woven-wire stationery fencing with extenders facing outward at the top of each post, not invisible fencing. Fencing needs to extend at least 8 inches below the surface, or have a galvanized-wire apron that extends out from the fence at least 15 inches. Prevention is the best strategy for minimizing encounters and conflicts with coyotes, foxes and other indigenous wildlife who shouldn’t be persecuted.