Letters

There are myriad other species that are in decline due to human activities. Allowing domesticated feral cats to roam like vagrants, multiplying into millions in the United States, ignores how they molest the songbirds, mourning doves, red-winged blackbirds and cardinals.

Exposing children to stories about any animals makes them care for “other species.” Kids who grow up on any animal story are more prone to care about both pets and wild animals. Caring for “other species” will form the next generation’s opinion about brown bears, bison, the gray wolf, beavers and the black-tailed prairie dogs that were victimized by your greedy previous generations.

If some of your resources, in the billions, were dedicated to the overlooked box turtles, possums, bobcats and red foxes, the rapidly decreasing “non-pet” family of wild animals, you could restore ladybugs, monarchs, tiger swallowtails and emperor bees to pre-GMO balanced populations.

Does the human condition ignore attitudes toward other living things by continuing to allow their killing, which is rampant and complete — fishing, farming, scavenging the America lobster and coral reefs of distant seas. To change requires a reassessment of who humans are in the big picture — just one specialized branch of the Tree of Life. How dominant you’ve become!

Here on Long Island, you care very much about your horses. But why not protect the habitat of herds of hoofed animals — the mountain goat, the bighorn sheep, mule deer, pronghorns and the American elk? You could dedicate your resources to feeding and raising their numbers up.

We are disturbed that your government is making changes in the Endangered Species Act, e.g., with weighing the economic cost of protection. We know you care about animals because of the way you care about your pets. We just ask for the same consideration.

As told to …

Mym TumaEast Moriches