Dear Bill Thibeault,
Thanks for your letter of March 16, 2006 in which you answered on behalf of the Minister of Forests indicating that the scientists tell you that there is nothing wrong with the local snowshoe hare population.
My research shows there is concern with the declining hare population. I have never seen where industrial pollution has been studied as a cause.
In my lifetime I have seen the build up to subsequent crashes to nothing of hare populations. I walk in hare habitat almost daily and did not see one single track this winter. I cannot believe this is normal.
This phenomenon is local. The area where the Brucellosis outbreak occurred has no hares but populations increase the farther you get from the main grazing area on North Shore private property. My research leads me to believe that this disease becomes less virulent each time it is transmitted.
The time frame of the hares' disappearance and my symptoms makes me very suspicious that Brucella jumped a species.
I am still emphatic in my belief that the snowshoe hares are our "canaries"; we must understand what happened as this is the only way that we can learn how to help them and ourselves.
http://mypage.uniserve.ca/~ron-anne/research.htm
Sincerely,
Ron Gerhardi
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