Do you use the boardwalk? Read this!

SooToday.com received the following letter today from faithful reader Lisa LeClaire:

************************* Hi Dave, I was wondering if you could please post a little something on getting the public to help clean up the waterfront.

Specifically down by the boardwalk.

I'm not suggesting people vault over the guardrail down to the rocks though.

If you see some garbage, please pick it up (as long as it's safe to do so of course).

It's such a beautiful place to walk.

However, what has prompted me to write this to you is the following:

Yesterday my husband and I brought our son down to see the Canada geese that are on the river.

There are three families with young ones and we wanted to feed them.

I've seen them patrolling up and down the river by the boardwalk, but they seem to favour the area by the white bridge, by Zellers.

So we carefully made our way down the embankment so we could feed them.

One of the babies had a big wad of fishing line in his mouth.

The line must have just gotten into its bill, because as I approached him to try and get it out, he (or she) bent down to get some bread crumbs and it fell out on its own.

However, this isn't always the way it works out.

I started looking around and saw a lot more fishing line on the ground.

I started picking it up, and literally spent a half hour picking up enough fishing line to fill the bread bag I had with me.

Not to mention about a hundred pieces of glass.

Fishing line is easy for us to untangle, we have hands.

What if we hadn't been there to feed them and the line had wrapped itself around the little bird's bill?

I doubt his parents would have been able to get it off.

While I'm on the subject, I know a responsible fisherman will not leave discarded fishing line, precisely for this reason, but for those of you who may not glean the repercussions of your actions, just take a second to gather up the broken line, bunch it up tightly and throw it in the garbage.

I know snags happen and sometimes you have no choice but to cut your line and leave it, but if we all act responsibly, we'll have the rest of our lives to enjoy going down to the boardwalk to watch the ducks and geese swim by.

Thank you, Lisa LeClaire *************************