Dear editor,
The well researched and reported story in the Oct. 6 edition of The Eagle about the run around that Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP) has been giving Cochrane Ecological Institute (CEI) about bear cub rehabilitation is a classic example of out-of-control government bureaucracy.
As a volunteer organization, CEI has, for several decades, been a haven for injured and orphaned wildlife in southern Alberta. As their scientific and practical knowledge, and their wildlife survival rate show, they work hard and know what they are doing.
The most amazing aspect of CEI is its ability to survive the inconsistent and disorganized bully tactics of AEP, whose mandate ought to include the care and support of animal wildlife as well as the human wildlife they sometimes have to deal with.
The saga surrounding CEI’s operating license almost defies belief with on-again off-again directives from AEP. The first-person nature of communications suggests the communications professionals at AEP don’t really know what they are doing or that supervision is sorely lacking.
For an experienced and highly effective volunteer organization to have to put up with such treatment in one of the seemingly declining areas of the world where the rule of law still encourages collaborative behaviour between governments and citizens is, well, let’s just say regrettable.
Dennis Apedaile
