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General Climbing Discussion

Author

Litter Conundrum

Gooch_McGee

5-Mar-2007
10:01:27 AM

On the weekend I embarked upon a glorious jaunt in Tasmania's world heritage area. During this venture I stumbled across an empty VB bottle (distasteful if not only destroring the scenery HA). I went to pick the bottle up when I noticed a spider had made it it's home and had a rather large brood of eggs. This then led to a lengthy discussion with my walking partner as to what should be done, pick up the litter, or destroy a native animal's home and more than likely it's life, not to meantion the lives of its eggs. I wont tell you what I did for fear of the prejudice downpoor of bullshit this forum tends to deliver to anybody voicing an opinion, but I thought it would be an interesting question to pose, as it seemed to be a bit of an ecological paradox.

So... would you pick up the rubbish, therefore leading to the destruction of the spiders new natural habbitat, or would you leave it there, a blemish on our beautiful natural heritage?

nmonteith

5-Mar-2007
10:03:52 AM

i'd pick it up. if you didn't someone else would shortly afterwards anyway.

Phil Box

5-Mar-2007
12:44:00 PM

Then there are the artificial reefs that have been placed by man. The use of old destroyers, car bodies, tyres etc. is a boon to fish life on the bottom of the ocean. Would I pick up a destroyer and put it in my backpack, ummm, no.

That said I am a great believer in leaving a place better than I found it. Where once upon a time I would steal Elkhorns and staghorns out of forests I would now much rather see those things in their natural state. If I see obvious rubbish laying around I may take the trouble to pick it up.

Wonderdog

5-Mar-2007
1:41:43 PM

Depends how big'n'hairy the spider is... :-o

jkane

5-Mar-2007
2:59:10 PM

You simply have to decide (for yourself) which is the lesser of two evils, which I imagine is what you did. The important point here is that you thought about it at all. On a forum generally for people who love the outdoors, this all feels like preaching to the converted!

However there are people out there who think that a VB bottle should be thrown at the nearest boulder for "fun". A few VCC members were at the You Yangs on Sunday picking up litter from around Big Rock. A large quantity of this was broken beer bottles. I wouldn't attribute much, if any, of what we collected to climbers, and I'd hate to think that other people had that perception.

gfdonc

6-Mar-2007
11:46:24 AM

Now you mention it, Jim, Ben and others deserve kudos for their efforts at the Youies as part of Clean up Australia Day.
- Steve

ShinToe Warrior

6-Mar-2007
1:55:45 PM

On 6/03/2007 gfdonc wrote:
>Now you mention it, Jim, Ben and others deserve kudos for their efforts
>at the Youies as part of Clean up Australia Day.
>- Steve
Anyone coming next time, consider wearing long sleeves and pants, like Ben did. Jim & I were covered in scratches from all the spiky bastard shrubs. Glad I took leather gloves for handling glass .

MUMC were there as well, so kudos to them :)

gfdonc

6-Mar-2007
2:07:58 PM

Hey, Will, now I can put another face to a Chockstone name!
And you looked nothing at all like your icon ...
- Steve

dalai

6-Mar-2007
2:24:55 PM

On 6/03/2007 gfdonc wrote:
>And you looked nothing at all like your icon ...

That's disappointing... I was expecting to see ShinToe Warrior at the boulders as the character Oddjob when someone is about to send his sweet FA project and cut them down with his hat!

As to the little conundrum. I would see if the spider and eggs could be carefully removed and placed somewhere sheltered and taken the bottle. Spiders like a lot of wildlife is resilient. Although they adapt so well to foreign objects in their wild environment the objects just shouldn't be left there in the first place!

ShinToe Warrior

6-Mar-2007
2:43:29 PM

On 6/03/2007 dalai wrote:
>That's disappointing... I was expecting to see ShinToe Warrior at the
>boulders as the character Oddjob when someone is about to send his sweet
>FA project and cut them down with his hat!
>
Well, I have the build of Oddjob, but with a caucasian head and an Akubra. My preference would be the blue-ring poisoned dart fired from a walking pole blowgun. The Akubra isn't too aerodynamic. If I start wearing a bowler hat to the crag, watch out!

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