To Rep. Kevin Van de Wege (and the Sequim Gazette), regarding the Dungeness Wildlife Refuge:

Please use your influence to straighten out the new regs (regulations) by cunning policy makers who skirted public outcry by allowing horses to be ridden on the beach … without public access to the beach! What a ruse. One accident involving a walker and horse and the entire horse trail is no longer available.

Here’s an analogy One person trips on a city sidewalk and all sidewalks are closed. So you may shop, but you can’t access the storefront via the sidewalk. You may ride the bus, but you cannot get to the bus on a sidewalk.

Oh, and joggers disturbing wildlife over there? That’s another joke. Hunters shoot the cage-raised and released pheasants (that have not formed natural instincts) with attendant death for some and frightening firearm blasts for all including me, but we cannot jog on a trail past acres of hiding places for birds, moles, voles, deer and mountain beavers, insects, tree frogs and big foots.

Perhaps oversight of the wildlife refuge should be turned over to an “Actual Users” committee. One would have to use the refuge to qualify for a seat on the committee.

Let’s see, we could have a seat at the table for high school cross country runners (who used to train for a short season); a seat for an equestrian; one for a dog owner/walker; one for an Audubon Society member to represent the pheasants and naturally occurring resident birds; one seat for a photographer; and I guess we’d have to include a hunters’ representative. You get the idea.

Pepper Gamroth

Sequim