Post by mintygreen on May 17, 2012 20:17:54 GMT -5
I'm rather upset right now after witnessing something while out on a walk earlier. 
My dad and I went to this park which is a conservation nature reserve. We have been there before but this is our first time back since the weather turned nice again(I think it's closed in the winter anyway).
Anyway so we were walking down the path and then I noticed some caterpillars on a tree. They were lower down on the tree, only about 2 feet or so off the ground on the trunk of the tree. They were Forest Tent Caterpillars. I hadn't seen any yet so far this year. I think a lot didn't survive this year because we had a warm spell that lasted a week back in March which I think made a lot of these things hatch but then it got really cold and probably killed most of them. These ones look like they had only recently hatched because they were still pretty small.
They do eat the leaves of trees but rarely if ever kill the trees from what I have seen because they are only on the tree for about a month and it's not in their best interests to kill the tree either since then there will be nothing there when they lay their eggs for next season.
Anyway so I was looking at them. I like caterpillars and have saved many in my life. My dad came over to look at them too. We looked at them for a few minutes. While we were looking at them some middle aged lady comes by and she waits and stands there like she wants to look at them too. I thought "Oh it's nice someone else wants to look at them."
My dad and I walked off after a few minutes to continue our walk. About 5-10 minutes later though we reached a point where we wanted to turn around and head back and on the way back I briefly went to look at the caterpillars again and saw that they had all been crushed and killed. Apparently that lady was just waiting for us to leave so she could kill them!
Now honestly, if they were on her own property and she killed them, although I still wouldn't do that....I can understand if people want to get rid of something that is on their property. However, this was a nature reserve....a conservation area.....and those caterpillars are a native species also. I'm not sure why someone who hates nature so much would even be walking through a nature reserve. It really bothers me that she would go out of her way(by standing waiting for us to leave) just so that she could kill something that wasn't even on her property and in a place where by.....if anywhere....that is where they should be.....in the forest.
If people are still going to kill native species on a NATURE RESERVE then, well.....that doesn't make me feel very good about the world.
My dad and I went to this park which is a conservation nature reserve. We have been there before but this is our first time back since the weather turned nice again(I think it's closed in the winter anyway).
Anyway so we were walking down the path and then I noticed some caterpillars on a tree. They were lower down on the tree, only about 2 feet or so off the ground on the trunk of the tree. They were Forest Tent Caterpillars. I hadn't seen any yet so far this year. I think a lot didn't survive this year because we had a warm spell that lasted a week back in March which I think made a lot of these things hatch but then it got really cold and probably killed most of them. These ones look like they had only recently hatched because they were still pretty small.
They do eat the leaves of trees but rarely if ever kill the trees from what I have seen because they are only on the tree for about a month and it's not in their best interests to kill the tree either since then there will be nothing there when they lay their eggs for next season.
Anyway so I was looking at them. I like caterpillars and have saved many in my life. My dad came over to look at them too. We looked at them for a few minutes. While we were looking at them some middle aged lady comes by and she waits and stands there like she wants to look at them too. I thought "Oh it's nice someone else wants to look at them."
My dad and I walked off after a few minutes to continue our walk. About 5-10 minutes later though we reached a point where we wanted to turn around and head back and on the way back I briefly went to look at the caterpillars again and saw that they had all been crushed and killed.
Apparently that lady was just waiting for us to leave so she could kill them!Now honestly, if they were on her own property and she killed them, although I still wouldn't do that....I can understand if people want to get rid of something that is on their property. However, this was a nature reserve....a conservation area.....and those caterpillars are a native species also. I'm not sure why someone who hates nature so much would even be walking through a nature reserve. It really bothers me that she would go out of her way(by standing waiting for us to leave) just so that she could kill something that wasn't even on her property and in a place where by.....if anywhere....that is where they should be.....in the forest.
If people are still going to kill native species on a NATURE RESERVE then, well.....that doesn't make me feel very good about the world.
