The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

n a world where explosive Ihuman population growth threatens to destroy our fragile ecoâ€"system, it is irresponsible for our politicians and business leaders to continue to advocate growth as though it were a signpost to Utopia. Such an attitude might have been valid a century ago when the world‘s population was less than two billion. But with today‘s phenomenal demand on the world‘s non renewâ€" able resources, it has become an anachronism. The oceans are severely depletâ€" ed, weather patterns have become more violent and industrial emisâ€" sions continue to pollute the air we breathe. It is abundantly clear from all the letters I have read over the past 20 years in both the Record and the Waterloo Chronicle that ordinary citizens do not want to see the Battle to protect our natural heritage only just begun However, because of the lack of rain and, no doubt, the huge pile of silt that has washed into it over the past five years, it‘s now technically 85 per cent goose poop. Someune. either the city, or the region, is dredging the pond behind my house. We call it a pond. It‘s actually part of an elaborate rainwater collection system. Unlike people around Victoria Park, we don‘t mind the geese. They only wander up to _ m our backyard a couple of times a year, | and usually Billy the ever vigilant dog frightens them off. OK, that‘s not really | true. Billy actually rarely notices them, but his mother scares them off by trying to convince Billy he should do something. Which he does. He lies down and stares at them. His work done, he then dozes off. Anyway, they have been digging away for a few days, carting large trucks full of, I assume, goose poop drenched dirt off to another location. (Remind me not to buy a house wherever it is they are dumping that!) I wonder what else they will find in there. Just a note, if there are any golf balls in the pond, they are not mine. No sir. Speaking of golf, my wife has finally started to lose it over my habit. Recognize l have already played almost 50 rounds this year. A couple of years ago, when I startâ€" ed to get back into the game, she was less than pleased at the time it took up. But, with grown chilâ€" dren, it‘s not as if I was abandoning her to take care of the kids. + Last year, she softened a lot, mostly I think because she has taken up the game herself, and also because she recognizes it‘s just part of business. I golf a lot in charity tournaments, as master of cereâ€" monies and with clients. Lately, though, I‘m seeing that rather stern look as l leap into the car for another round. And she‘s started to see through some of my ploys, such as golfing with the boss. _ "Lcan‘t turn down the Big Guy!" I say as I careen out the door. And she bought that right up until she golfed with us and figured out we were actually havâ€" Golf is becoming a problem Waterloo Region become another Toronto, with all of its problems of crime and congestion. They deplore the ongoing provincial and regional pressure to accelerate the ugly unimaginative urban spraw! that continues to con taminate our environment. The battle to prevent high densiâ€" ty development near a recharge area on the Waterloo moraine has been lost, but I suspect the battle to preâ€" vent further destruction to our beautiful rural heritage has only just y wife and 1 have a business in Waterloo (and also live in Waterloo) and eat Junch Olt every weekday. We find the parking in downtown Waterloo inconvenient and do not consider dining there at lunch. I fully concur with the comâ€" Does Waterloo have a parking plan? BRIAN BOURKE COMMENT ing a good time. Why didn‘t I think of that? Now, she‘s just wary of that reason. 1 managed to get away Saturday and play, but I think that was only because my brother was in the group. Can‘t get in the way of middleâ€"aged brotherly bonding! In a quiet moment this weekend she pointed out that golf was becoming a problem, mostly because I pmmmmmees Never take her anywhere. . h This is not true, of course. [ / ( )l to| She has gone golfing with me severâ€" RKE | â€" al times this year, but she says that §R doesn‘t count because there were J other people there. molasses. This, however, is understandable since any issue worth its salt in the municipal arena must be disâ€" cussed in a variety of meetings. (Trust me, 1 have been to some of these meetings, and they are not nearly as exciting and powerful as you might think. And if you actually do think that, then we need to have a talk.) We had to park one of the cars on the street a couple of weeks ago. _ ______ 1 dutifully registered it online. I also took advanâ€" tage of the comments form to once again express my almost obsessive belief the bylaw is, in a scienâ€" tific term, "stupid." My wife says I might get a better response if I was nicer. David A. Crow At least 1 think she was talking about parking. Brian Bourke, a member of the 105.3 KOOL FM morning crew, can be reached by email at bbourke@koolfm.com. Waterloo Truth is, 1 take her lots of places And she usually finds her way back. An incredible array of people have asked how that whole overnight parkâ€" ing bylaw thing is going. Nowhere, fast, is the short answer. 1 was told a few weeks ago by a city councillor that there would be some information soon. Perhaps the city‘s "soon" is slower than my "soon." So far response time has been somewhere in the area of nicely chilled ments made recently by Paul McGough‘s customers about the lack of "parking spaces across the street." We have tried Ali Baba‘s and were regular customers at Marbles but don‘t even give either place (or lanet Lynn‘s} a second thought for lunch now. If you remove even more spaces you will have other potential cusâ€" tomers also giving up on uptown Waterloo. With regard to the other busiâ€" nesses in the uptown core, they are certainly not our first choices for shoppingâ€" because of the parking. I also concur with Mr. McGough‘s comment that "‘council and staff {made) critically important deciâ€" sions to the core before having a strategy."" I wish the city could undo some of its mistakes, but I don‘t know Ihope we don‘t end up like downtown Kitchener. Gary Freeman Waterloo A: a child, I had a serious fear of bats. I can still remember he first time I saw one â€" playing on the slide at Belmont Park in Kitchener just after dusk. L ran all the way home, convinced this black, frightening, creature of the night was going to swoop down and get tangled in my hair â€" or worse yet, sink its vampireâ€"like fangs into my neck and suck my blood. Bats, being nocturnal animals, have been stigmatized for centuries by folklore and associated with myths of Dracula, Halloween and witches. In Christian Europe, bats became associated with the devil, and many medieval paintings depict the devil with bat wings. Today, I no longer fear bats â€" in fact, I find them fascinatâ€" ing and recently became the proud owner of a bat house, built from scratch by my fatherâ€"inâ€"law. _ â€" â€" Bat houses are commonly wooden boxes with one to three chambers inside where bats can enter and safely roost. Houses should be mounted at least 15 feet high on such structures as poles, sides of buildings and tall trees without obstruction. In Canada, where you mount your bat house plays a major role in the internal temperature, as bat houses need to receive at least six to eight hours of direct sunlight. It‘s also advantageous to paint the outside of the house black to absorb plenty of heat â€" when baby bats are born, they need it very warm. If you have a pond or creek nearby, as we do, there‘s an even greater incentive to find a way to attract bats â€" they eat mosquitoes, and lots of Bats are the best organic mosquito control you can find, as one bat can MARSHALL consume around 3,000 mosquitoes in WARD a single night. Without bats, the amount of insects in the environment would be astronomical. In my research, I learned that bats are the only mammal capable of true flight. As well, for their size, bats are the slowest reproducing mammals on Earth, with a gestation period of six months. Litter size is usually just one pup, and weighs up to 25 per cent of its mother‘s body weight, which is like a human mother giving birth to a 35â€"pound baby. Bats find shelter in caves, tree cavities and crevices of buildâ€" ings. Homeowners who have bats living in their attics, chimâ€" neys and eaves may want to consider a bat house as a means of giving them a place to roost â€" away from your home. And for those who just appreciate wildlife, a bat house, like a bird . house, is a way to bring another interesting animal into your backyard. Another good reason to put up a bat house is because bat populations are decreasing all over the world, mainly because of habitat loss. One of the big projects the Organization for Bat Conservaâ€" tion at the Cranbrook Institute of Science is working on this year involves the endangered Mauritius fruit bats, indigenous to the Mauritius Islands off the coast of Madagascar. The fruit growers on the island are killing the bats, convinced they are causing most of their crop damage, without taking into account other animals introduced to the island that could be playing a role. The bat conservation group is trying to convince the govâ€" ernment to stop the killing of bats by the fruit growers. Direcâ€" tor Rob Mies says, "The bats disperse seeds from those trees that they relay on. So it‘s funny that without the bats there, there wouldn‘t be any fruit trees growing. So it‘s kind of ironic that they are killing the bats to protect their fruit trees when, actually, the bats are the ones who disperse their seeds." Creature of the night is nothing to fear In Europe, bats are protected â€" if you have a bat living in your house, you have to apply for a permit to evict them. And although there is still a general fear of bats throughout the world, several bat conservation organizations are working hard to educate people about bats and their importance to ecosysâ€" tems around the world. So, as you can see, bats are nothing to fear. That is, unless you‘re a mosquito. Marshall Ward is an artist and independent filmmaker. Email is welcome at marshall_ward@hotmail.com. WATERLOO CHRONICLE * Wednesday, August 8, 2 2007 + 9