Hunters and orchardist clash over legal hunting

Ian Mounsey was trying to stop hunters from shooting near his rural Oliver home on Saturday – but instead, he was given a ticket and a fine, for obstructing legal hunting activity.

Hunter Dale Vidulich, from the Lower Mainland, was part of the group of five hunters who called the conservation officer for help in dealing with Mounsey’s interference.

"He had these bangers, and every time a flock of geese would approach us, he would use these things," Vidulich said. He claims the group had permission to be on the property – which is private, and just outside of town limits – as well as the legal right to hunt the geese. In fact, Vidulich said he had spoken with locals about the goose overpopulation, and the weekend hunt was intended to help.

"I think the people of Oliver should understand we are trying to get rid of these geese. We were on private property, with permission," he said, adding the group was out with local guide Jim Wiens. "We can help you with the goose problem, all we need is cooperation from the local public."

But at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, when shot peppered the ground around Mounsey, he realized there was no way he and his three teenaged kids could play hockey on the pond behind his home – and he also had to abandon his plan to prune in his 10-acre orchard.

"Saturday morning, I went down to check the ice, because the kids wanted to go skating," Mounsey said. He was prying the hockey net out of the ice when hunters – who were totally hidden on the other side of the small pond -- began shooting at geese.

"I got shot coming down all around me. It hits the reeds, and sounds like hail," he said. Afraid he was going to be hit by a stray bullet, he tried to make himself known.

"I yelled at them, to make it obvious I was here," he said. But the group of hunters kept on shooting. Then, Mounsey drove his truck to the edge of the pond, and turned his stereo up. For the next hour, the hunting continued, so he brought out his bird bangers.

"I wanted them to stop. This is my damned property," said Mounsey. He was concerned primarily about safety, considering the close proximity of the neighbours. The small pond sits just east of the airport, outside of the town boundaries. From the shore, you can see the Southwind Inn, and a few local houses.

But Vidulich said they were within hunting regulations and had every right to be there. They drove around the pond to Mounsey, and told him to stop the interference. The RCMP were called, and conservation officer Bob Hamilton came out and gave Mounsey the ticket – along with a $345 fine.

"That’s just the money part of it. The bad part is I can’t use my land," he said. First of all, there’s the safety issue – he and his kids can’t go out on the property while hunters are shooting.

"The regulation is you can’t hunt within 100 m of a dwelling," said Vidulich, who added they were 342 m away from Mounsey’s home. As for safety, Vidulich said it’s common sense not to shoot where anyone is going to be hurt.

Secondly, since this issue also happened to Mounsey last year, he knows it is affecting his fruit.

"I sold some apples to IGA (in Vancouver) and they were returned, with shot in the apples," he said.

He’s also concerned about the fair use of his property. He said using the bird scares, running his truck, and listening to his music is all standard noise on his property, and now it appears he is not allowed to make this noise for fear of repercussions.

But he admits the noise he was making on Saturday was more of a protest. He’s not anti-hunting – in fact, if anyone sought his permission to hunt on his property he would strongly consider allowing it – he is against the way this kill was handled. He said the hunters were driving around to other locations where they weren’t allowed to shoot, and scaring the geese in hopes they would move to the pond.

"I understand the (goose control) program. I understand there is a goose overpopulation, just like there are too many starlings – but there are better ways, within a municipality," he said. "This was a big kill program. It was completely arrogant."

Smart Growth on the Ground

Visions are rarely epiphanies. They usually come as a result of hard work, an interchange of ideas and goals that don’t always mesh initially, and compromises agreed to for the sake of the greater good of the community.

In Oliver, the vision being sketched freehand in its residents’ minds and through their fingertips is what this postal code will look like in 2041. And it is being done not with charcoal, paint or India ink, but with bars, dots and the precise language of Smart Growth on the Ground (SGOG) facilitators, words like ‘indicators’ and ‘target ranges.’

"Targets define and measure everyone’s expectations," said Shana Johnstone, manager of planning and development at the Design Centre for Sustainability at the University of BC and a member of the SGOG team. "And targets help us to understand collectively where we are and where we want to be.

"We know there is going to be growth pressure in this area, there already is, and there will be a lot more. So one of your questions tonight will be how do you manage that as a community."

The groups who attended the last SGOG workshop during the evening of Thursday, February 23, built on the choices made by residents in January’s session, which had been subsequently ranked by the SGOG team according to the participants’ stated priorities. For three hours that evening the groups representing agriculture and environment as well as the umbrella group of culture, recreation, education and social issues, further distilled those choices by assigning them range percentages of acceptability.

The issues of community character; public open green space in developed areas; land in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR); local jobs; town housing density; residential water conservation; protected environmentally sensitive areas; proximity to trail network for recreation; local transit service; proximity to basic services; surface infiltration ability; and riparian area preservation and restoration were discussed in that order of importance, with the year 2041 in mind.

And as people wrestled with ideas that will span a 35-year period, they came to realize their goals and wishes would have consequences for the next generation.

Jay Martiniuk is on the leading edge of the generation that will be affected by the decisions being hammered out with the SGOG team. Already on the Advisory Planning Commission for Area C, Martiniuk possesses both the commitment to the region Smart Growth is hoping to tap into, as well as the youth factor they are hoping to reach.

As Martiniuk who will be in his early 50s by the time the vision is complete, said later, "As a young person, I am representing a group of people who will be feeling the effects of this exercise and it is very important to have a say in it."

There were a number of issues he considered important that evening, but he zeroed in on the preservation of the town’s character and the rural character as being of prime importance.

"And that means preserving land in our area within the ALR," he said promptly.

Martiniuk continued, "And I think you also have to plan very carefully too in terms of the expansion that is going to happen here. In terms of housing density, I think we have to focus on proper planning regarding where we are going to put all the expected new people who are coming here."

And while he is resistant to town expansion into the rural area when the supposed population wave hits the South Okanagan, Martiniuk is pragmatic enough to realize compromise will have to be part of the equation in the coming years. However, he is adamant that any give-and-take will not come at the expense of the area’s pastoral character.

"An integral part of our uniqueness is our agriculture, wine industry and orchards and we need to keep them in order to preserve our identity," said Martiniuk who is leaning towards a degree in oenology and gaining practical experience at a local winery.

His remarks were reflected in the decisions taken by others in the agriculture group at the Thursday meeting.

"Change can’t be stopped but it can be controlled,’ said rural orchardist Dave Evans, regarding the region’s character. "What we are looking for is slow growth."

And the group’s vision incorporated that goal as it set the targets for the years to come. As the evening progressed, the bars appearing on the graphs showed a community that would value agricultural land over development and protect the current standings of the ALR, yet keep in mind that some growth was necessary for the well-being of its citizens.

It would be a town proud of its generous green space and parks; one which saw the merits of a community that balanced jobs with lifestyle; one that geared itself toward a creative mixture of higher density housing in the downtown core and gradually tapered that mix to lower density and single family dwellings nearer the town’s boundaries.

Greater Oliver of 2041 would be a place that valued water management practices at the same time as it vigorously guarded farmers’ rights to their historical water allotment of 10 gallons per acre; a place that actively protected environmentally sensitive areas; one that built its homes in close proximity to a well-maintained trail system; one that used a community shuttle or similar conveyance to provide local transit service; and it would be a community that felt walking distances to basic services was important to its residents, even as it realized the proximity could not come at the expense of the area’s character.

And finally Oliver would be a community that managed its stormwater and urbanized watershed through proper infiltration systems to ensure water, lands, air and biodiversity meet the needs of current and future generations, as well as a community committed to the preservation and restoration of its riparian areas.

The final step in this series culminates in an intense four-day collaborative creative planning process (charrette) between community representatives and professional designers, planners and related experts.

Those experts will take the information gleaned in the February sessions and turn the choices into concrete planning modules, which will then form the backbone of the May charrette.

SGOG is a partnership between the Design Centre for Sustainability at UBC, the Real Estate Institute of BC and Smart Growth of BC. Its local partners are the Town of Oliver and Area C of the Regional District of the Okanagan Similkameen.

Farmers warned to prepare

Dr. David Biesenthal, the farmer who was at the centre of the Walkerton water controversy, was surprised at how quickly he found himself in the middle of the crisis.

"You can be a normal, Ma-and-Pa farmer in May, and by August you almost feel like a serial killer. By the first part of October, you can be sued for $350 million, just because of where you live," Biesenthal recently told a room of about 40 farmers.

The Southern Interior Stockman’s Association hosted Biesenthal at a lecture in Okanagan Falls, and ranchers came from all over the south Okanagan to hear how to protect themselves from a similar experience.

The stop was part of a national tour to help farmers understand how important it is to follow an environmental farm plan and to keep accurate records.

"I think having the records really helped exonerate our farm," Biesenthal said. "If I tell you nothing else - keeping records is the most important thing you do."

Accompanied by a power point presentation, the Ontario veterinarian told his six-year-old story.

"In 2,000, Walkerton happened, and, for some reason, farmers got blamed," he said.

Biesenthal is a University of Guelph graduate who practices as an equine veterinarian three days per week from his farm. He operates a 50 head cow-calf herd with his wife and farms 1,500 acres of cash-crops (wheat, corn, soybeans, white bean, canola and barley) with his son.

Their barnyard is only 200 m from the well that was believed to be at the centre of the E. Coli outbreak that affected 2,300 of the 4,600 people in the town. Seven people died, and 27 still have kidney damage, he said.

When officials started poking around his farm, taking fecal samples, he started to realize he was at the centre of the controversy.

"I had no idea of the magnitude of this situation," he said. Obviously, Biesenthal wanted to know the source of the contaminated water as well as others in the town. But the media frenzy was unbearable.

"You just can’t imagine how many people showed up and wanted a piece of this," he said. His wife stopped going to town, and one day, a reporter showed up and asked him how it felt to be the source of the bacteria that killed people.

But it wasn’t until the fall that the full impact hit. Biesenthal was served with a $350 million lawsuit - and his insurance could only cover $1 million of that.

The next part is the lesson Biesenthal has been spreading to ranchers all over Canada. When investigators wanted to see records of how the farmer had managed his land for the previous two years, he had the information ready - and it proved everything was within normal limits.

"I think having the records alleviated the lawsuit," he said.

The farmer had an environmental farm plan in place. He said it helped them feel confident, knowing their actions were an example of due diligence and appropriate management practices.

He had a nutrient management plan, outlining cropping practices, and fertilization. He recorded yields, and even adverse weather conditions.

Eventually, the lawsuit was settled, and it was realized there were other causes for the contamination. But Biesenthal pointed out how quickly agriculture tends to get blamed for problems like this, and he urges valley farmers to take precautions.

Oliver farmer Dave Casorso attended the presentation, and said he thought it was useful.

"It seems like agriculture can get blamed for a lot of things," said Casorso. He thinks orchardists and intensive farmers have been planning and record-keeping all along - but ranchers are a little slower to follow suit.

"I think most of us are pretty careful," Casorso said. "But sometimes (a presentation like this) makes you a little more conscious about what you are doing."

A public clothesline

The letter last week from 17-year-old Lena Stelkia critical of development on the Osoyoos Indian Band lands upset others in the band. We received a call from an elder we know and respect who wanted to know why we would print something that was full of errors and disrespectful of Chief Clarence Louie.

We explained that we try to provide a forum on our editorial pages for a wide range of opinion. Our agreeing with an opinion in a letter-to-the-editor isn’t necessary for it to be published. We work on the premise that in the marketplace of ideas the good arguments will ultimately win the hearts and minds of our readers and the bad ones will wither away.

We suggested that the elder, rather than tell us, write a response that reminded Ms. Stelkia how much of her present comfort and lifestyle is the result of the development initiated by the man she dismissively referred to in her letter as "our fearless leader."

No, was the firm reply, "I won’t air our dirty laundry."

We could only express our regret because that is what we are. We are the local clothesline and believe that a place to hang the problems out in the sunshine is useful in a peaceful society.

This elder’s reluctance is understandable but doesn’t take into account the considerable shift in attitude that has taken place in recent years among those living on the non-native side of Boundary Road. The Osoyoos Indian Band has become a big player in the development of the South Okanagan. It is a huge generator of economic activity and a major employer of non-natives. Whatever negative stereotypes might have existed about Okanagan peoples from the past has been severely challenged by developments in the last 20 years. There was no better example of the pride that non-natives feel about the continuing success of the band than the spontaneous roar that went through parents at the high school graduation two years ago when Chief Louie, in his address, noted that this was the largest graduating class of band members ever. It was not polite applause. It was a spontaneous "Hurray" from just about everyone there. The people of Oliver want the band to succeed. They want it to be a full partner in the future of the South Okanagan although no one is quite sure how that might work.

Our wish at the Chronicle is that the band will feel confident enough to consider using us as their clothesline from time to time. Rather than viewing Ms. Stelkia’s letter as a problem, we would suggest a more positive view. She’s young and expressing a great desire to be part of the political process. This is good and should be encouraged. Rather than ignore her, it might be far more productive to acknowledge her interest even if it is by reminding her, as the elder suggested, that she has derived a great deal of benefit from the developments promoted by the "fearless leader." She’s bright and will survive a public rebuke.

After all it was not that long ago that a young Clarence Louie started saying things that got a lot of band members upset.