The paradox of Perins Peak

To the editors:

I find it repugnant that our community condones luring unsuspecting wildlife into a sense of safety in the Perins Peak Wildlife Area, only to murder them during hunting season. I grew up on a ranch in a hunting culture, and I can assure you, that is not hunting.

We have gotten ourselves into a lose-lose situation by creating the Perins Peak Wildlife Area with restricted funds that requires that hunting be allowed. It’s time to admit that turning the meadows next to residential areas into guaranteed hunting zones was a mistake. We should, instead, be searching for ways to avoid habituating wildlife to co-exist with us in urban settings. It is in their best interests to remain cautious so that they can better protect themselves from our intentional or unintentional destruction. It is inexcusable that we have created a situation where deer, elk, bear or even mountain lions are invited close to our residential zones only to become the targets for elimination when they inadvertently consume things we didn’t intend for them to eat.

Unfortunately we further exacerbate our adverse impact on wildlife by accepting severe restrictions on recreation in the Perins Peak Wildlife Area, which is adjacent to Durango. Annually 30,000 recreationalists are forced to go around Perins Peak Wildlife Area by driving up Junction Creek or Lightner Creek to the open recreation areas just beyond. In doing so, we not only pollute key wildlife riparian zones, but we actually kill many more animals with our gas-guzzling weapons of wildlife destruction.

The animals would be better served if we were to develop “wildlife areas” away from population centers. We should then strive to concentrate our residential development to minimize our encroachment into wildlife habitats. Further we should concentrate recreation around and adjacent to our residential zones. Recreational activity would then serve as an effective buffer and a notice to wildlife that they may be getting too close for their own safety.

By challenging the state on the issue of access to county roads within the Perins Peak Wildlife Area, our locally elected county officials are raising an important issue. How can we rethink the well-4intentioned, but functionally misguided, restrictions of the Perins Peak Wildlife Area? It is my hope that this action can bring about a dialogue that will ultimately result in more effective management of our impacts on wildlife. The Perins Peak Wildlife Area isn’t helping wildlife, it’s hurting them.

– Ed Zink, Durango

Keeping independent film alive

Dear Editors,

Thank you for your article “Durango Film Festival Takes New Shape.” While it is mostly dead on, it is misleading in one regard. While one of the board members of  the Durango Independent Film Festival group was a board member of the OLD Durango Film Festival a few years back, none of our members was on the board this last year. The rest of our group were a part of the Durango Film Festival last year and/or in previous years as staff persons performing various operational and other duties to help pull off the festival. We did not have any decision-making power over any financial issues nor were we even aware of the degree of the financial problems until very recently.

We started a new Film Festival because it is the NEW Durango Independent Film Festival’s understanding that the old Durango Film Festival organization has in essence disbanded. It has no known constituted board of directors, and the executive director has moved away from the area. As a result, a number of leaders in the community have joined with a core group of staff and volunteers from the old organization to reorganize and ultimately form a new 501 (c) 3. This new entity is the Durango Independent Film Festival and we are currently searching for a new executive director – in an attempt to keep a film festival occurring in Durango without interruption. Explicit in our efforts is the desire to find a way to win the support of the old organization’s sponsoring businesses and other additional new Durango area sponsors and to conduct a festival that is culturally, artistically and financially rewarding to these sponsoring businesses and to the Durango Area Community.

We do have a lot of work and obstacles ahead of us, but we are a pretty determined group who is plowing ahead because we feel this event adds to the lives of the Durango Community. We encourage people interested in film and helping the festival out to contact us at scott@gofilmfest.com or visit our web site at: www.durangofilm.org

– Best Regards, Scott Stewart, member of the Durango Independent Film Organization

The real cosmic break

(Editors’ note: The following letter is in response to “The Pole” in our June 2 edition. The brief mentioned the Frank Trio’s effort to participate in the 10,000 Lakes Music Festival’s Cosmic Break Contest. At that time, the band T.U.G.G. was one of the local band’s leading competitors. We wrote, “Let your voice be heard by the powers that be at 10,000 Lakes and keep T.U.G.G. where they belong, back playing weddings in Lacrosse, Wisc.” Apparently, T.U.G.G. was paying attention.)

Dear Editors,

Weddings in La Crosse, Wisc.? Ha! T.U.G.G. rocked 10KLF and will do it again next year. Thanks so much for the press. 

– Jordan Hedrington, 9 Mile Entertainment Group, LLC