CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter was submitted in response to a column about collecting trilobites in Craigleith and a letter to the editor entitled Leave the fossils alone.
I have to agree with your earlier letter writer ("Leave the fossils alone") regarding Mr. Lamb's recent column about taking trilobite fossils from the Craigleith shale beaches.
Had it been April 1, I would've sworn Mr. Lamb's article, and his seeming joy at smashing 450-million-year-old rock formations with a hammer, was an April Fool's prank.
While the author correctly notes that you aren't allowed to take fossils from the Provincial Park, what he fails to mention, or is ignorant of, is that significant portions of the shale beaches in Craigleith (outside the park) are "Areas of Natural and Scientific Interest" specifically for the presence of shale rock and fossils.
These areas need protection and careful management to preserve the fossil and rock formations for scientific reasons, but also to allow all of us (and future generations) enjoy them.
Visit the shale beaches.
Hunt for fossils.
Take pictures.
But leave your hammer at home.
Will Thomson
Collingwood, Ont.
