How can we ensure dogs do not degrade Summit Woods’ primary and legal function as a protected habitat for birds and plants all year round?
At the risk of being labelled parochial, I would like to share with you a debate going on in my funny little bailiwick of Westmount. The debate turns on the difficulty in rationing the use of a unique nature preserve.
As well as maintaining three fenced-in dog runs, Westmount allows off-leash dogs mornings and evenings from June 16 to Oct. 31 in an unfenced urban forest called Summit Woods.
In 2017, we consolidated Summit Woods: it went from 37 to 57 acres with the demolition of one-third of the Summit Circle road. Summit Woods now occupies six per cent of Westmount’s entire territory of 1,000 acres. No nearby municipality owns a dog run even close to that size; it naturally draws many dog owners from outside Westmount.
A public park is considered a public good. But off-leash dog-walking in an urban nature park has to be severely rationed as a very scarce public good. Quotas could be established to ensure dogs do not degrade Summit Woods’ primary and legal function as a protected habitat for birds and plants all year round.
As an alternative to quotas, would it be so unfair to restrict off-leash dogs in Summit Woods to those with Westmount owners if it were independently proved that too many free-range dogs were in fact compromising the natural state of the woods? After all, Westmount does restrict access to tennis courts, indoor ice rinks, residential parking and Victoria Hall use to Westmounters. Just as Montreal does with many of its own facilities.
Still, Westmount can’t claim to be a steward committed to preserving such a unique yet vulnerable urban wild if too many dogs are cavorting through the underbrush. Limiting dog use in Summit Woods is, in fact, in the interest of allMontrealers, most of whom, I am sure, would appreciate birdwatching or tiptoeing through the trillia in a rare, protected and natural environment.
Peter F. Trent, a former inventor and businessman, served five terms as mayor of Westmount and led the Montreal demerger movement. His Merger Delusion was a finalist for the best Canadian political book of 2012.