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Community void weighs heavy on Wildlife Committee |
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Thursday, 17 April 2008 |
By Lara Kirkner
Mammoth Times Staff Writer
 While wildlife such as bears are the heart of the reason for developing a community wildlife committee, taking care of them seems to continue to be overshadowed by the conflict that is unresolved between the Town and Steve Searles.MAMMOTH TIMES PHOTO/SUSAN MORNING
At the very beginning of the meeting, facilitator Sergeant Karen Smart explained that the meeting had been scheduled in order to focus on a way to deal with the bears and other wildlife.
“This is not a meeting to discuss the Wildlife Management Specialist position,” Smart said. “If you came here to talk about that, we ask that you stay and be involved, but that is not going to be part of the conversation.”
Town Council voted on March 19 to eradicate the Town job defined as “Wildlife Management Specialist,” and replace it with a community based Wildlife Committee. Searles had held the position for years until he and Schienle butted heads.
“The Town sees this as an opportunity to get this issue of wildlife management out into the community,” Smart said. “If you all dislike us [Town] so much, take this opportunity to cut us out of the loop.”
At the meeting, the best idea that was conjured up was to create a nonprofit organization to raise funds that would provide Searles with the things he needs to do that he did before, but make him an employee of the community. It was a scenario that Searles said he did not see working out well.
“I'm flattered that the community would want to do that, but the person or people who deal with wildlife management need to be able to work closely with the Town and the Police Department,” Searles said. “I wouldn't have been able to do what I did without being able to go into the department and use their programs and equipment.”
The relationship between wildlife management and the Town is, itself, a key component to making a wildlife program work.
Since it is obvious the Town does not want to work with him, Searles said he thinks the solution is to “flyer” the job, in effect put it out for people to apply for; something unlikely at this point since the Council has decided it is no longer a Town position.
Whatever the solution ends up being, it became more and more apparent that the community needs to get together to be a part of making it. The huge void of community in last week's “community” meeting will need to be rectified before this issue goes away and the animals become the main focus.
“So, perhaps that is this group's first course of action,” Smart said, “get out there and connect with the people who boycotted this meeting.”
After all, Mammoth Lakes does have wildlife management tactics that seem to be working. By educating people about interacting with wildlife, the town has already made great progress in keeping trash cleaned up and not giving the animals a chance to cause problems.
“Many goals have been met, but that doesn't mean we can stop,” Smart said. “This is something that never gets eradicated, which is why we need the committee. You don't need to reinvent the wheel, you just need to take it out into the community.”
One local who was at the meeting has already begun his own “patrolling” to help in wildlife management efforts. Joe Parrino has been keeping an eye on dumpsters around town to make sure they are closed and cleaned up. Parrino volunteered to head up the committee, as he had already begun putting together an organization of his own called “Bear With Us,” and it would be easy to integrate the two.
At this point, Parrino's next course of action is to set the date of another committee meeting, and to continue planning a fund-raiser that he had started work on. He expects the fund-raiser to be held on June 28.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 24 April 2008 )
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