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Not everyone there agrees with helmet less riding, though they do discuss the disagreement over the effectiveness of helmets for those, the stats say 1/3 of serious bike accidents involve brain injuries. That’s some huge numbers!!!
We wear helmets to do dozens of other activities for sport or leisure - ski/snowboard, skating, mountain climbing, spelunking, white water sports. Additionally, the article says those engaged in cycling for exercise or sport almost all wear helmets. Why is there such an aversion to wearing helmets while biking?
In my lifetime skiing I’ve seen an enormous change in people. When I was younger almost no one wore helmets. Now, it’s rare to see someone not wearing a helmet.
GoTransit’s Burloak Drive grade separation project would disagree, as it features a painted bike lane at level with auto traffic, despite having built an elevated sidewalk.
I said it was easy, doesnt mean its always implemented. Ive designed a handful of roads to have designated bike lanes or fully separated bike lanes. Every time we do any Active Transport, I’ve advocated for fully separated systems or physical barriers between. 90% of the time, the decision to cut them has come after resident input/discussion. Often the Townships I work with don’t have the resident/political backing to justify narrowing vehicle lanes to improve bike traffic - because that is what is required. Unfortunately we still don’t have enough public backing to push through these.
Hell, one job I’m working on is on a “designated bike route” and residents fought a separated path so much that the city scrapped it and went with the Advisory Bike Lanes.
People who go hunting don’t go by “off the top of their head”.
Now I can’t speak to the laws in California for hunting, but in Canada they have pretty crazy strict laws regarding illegal hunting, including seizure of anything used in the act (trucks, atvs, guns, boats, etc), removal of gun license, and huge fines.
A quick google search shows the method they’ve used, and have been using for the last decade as an attempt to stop the spread: Barred owls are much more aggressive, and playing their calls can lure them in to fight, in a way the spotted owls don’t, so you don’t need to just go based on visual differences. Here’s one article about the removal process up to now with an interview of a biologist who’s pro-hunting.
Relocation of the barred owls isn’t feasible, because no matter where you send them, there’s probably already owls there, and relocation often results in the animal dying off anyway.
What’s the alternative? Watch as the spotted owls are out-competed and go extinct due to human development and habitat destruction? To me, that seems worse. We already hunt to maintain populations of animals in other species - deer spring to mind. Since we’ve eliminated many of the deer’s predators, we need to maintain that role, which includes setting hunting targets each year. Why are these owls different?