Remi, 14, owned by Welcome Bay resident Donna Matheson, was euthanised on November 6 after suffering leg injuries in a fireworks-related incident.
Remi, 14, owned by Welcome Bay resident Donna Matheson, was euthanised on November 6 after suffering leg injuries in a fireworks-related incident.
I was so saddened to hear of the beautiful horse that had to be euthanised following severe injury, caused by the terror of fireworks (News, November 9). The stress the horse and owner endured is unimaginable.
In the past, I watched in horror as a beautiful stallion boltedin fright from fireworks. The distraught owner was powerless to help, the horse horribly injured and the vet bills immense.
One Guy Fawkes, a breeder discovered some of her valuable show birds had abandoned their nest boxes when fireworks went off. Injured adult and baby birds died.
This Guy Fawkes, my greyhound suffered, despite all precautions taken. Violently shaking for hours, and hiding in corners, she panted and drooled endlessly, finally standing still in shock, unable to move.
Nothing I could do helped her in her distress, which lasted well past the protracted fireworks. It was awful for her and me. These events are just a minuscule sample of what Guy Fawkes and random fireworks are like for many pets and their owners.
Tauranga City Council has asked us all to fill out its survey on the upcoming new aquatic facility at Memorial Park.
That’s great but what worries me is enough people filling it out.
I hope they are, otherwise we will end up with another Baywave.
What the Bay of Plenty needs is an Olympic-style complex with eight-lane, 50m pools, a full springboard and platform diving facilities – not 25m pools which are a waste of effort.
Even in the 1940s and 1950s, Rotorua had the Blue Baths with diving platforms and many swimming and diving carnivals were held there. I know because as a lad I won the Auckland Provincial Junior Diving Cup there.
Those days are long gone. Unfortunately, the old Blue Baths are no more but now is the time to bring swimming and diving competitors back from all over New Zealand, not to mention just the Bay.
Like rugby, swimming is a spectator sport and brings the public in.
By all means, include a learners’ pool but a bomb pool would be a bit over the top. I imagine a youth inadvertently bombing someone else in the pool.
Whatever, people have your say.
James Newman
Mount Maunganui
US President-elect Donald Trump's Republican Party will have control of the Senate and House of Representatives. Photo / Getty Images
US now has an autocracy
For the first time, the US has a President who has absolute power with the Senate and House of Representatives being controlled by his party and a Supreme Court ruling that he can do as he pleases with impunity.
The US could now easily be thought of as an autocracy, just like China and Russia.
Still, that could be a cause for some relief, as the democratic US has always railed against the evils of autocracies, and caused wars because of them.
John Pakes
Rotorua
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