EDITOR:

Why does the conversation around natural resources so often focus on wolves and cormorants when we are losing landscapes of healthy forests and lakes to an army of invasive species?

In Delta County the list of invasive species and foreign pathogens causing measurable harm to our natural systems and native wildlife is staggering; quaaga and zebra mussels (because one bi-valve pest wasn’t enough), sea lamprey, round goby, phragmites, emerald ash borer, Dutch elm disease, beech bark disease, glossy buckthorn, spotted knapweed, Eurasian watermillfoil, tatarian honeysuckle, and west nile virus. As a firm believer in a government limited in scope to the “health, safety, and welfare” of its citizens our elected officials should realize the danger these invaders pose to our quality of life and take action. Pure Michigan? I’m afraid not.

Any politician that mentions one or more of the species listed above in a stump speech, mass mailing, town hall meeting, interview, door-to-door visit, or debate between now and election day will get my vote — Democrat or Republican it doesn’t matter.

Joe Kaplan

Escanaba