In an email to the editorial office, the Reader wrote:
There was a beautiful entry in 2012. THE POND in the center of Bolesławiec [...] should be the city’s showcase; four years have passed, it is 2016, and what do we have? The entire fence around the pond with ducklings and swans is damaged, and the birds are very, very hungry. And so Bolesławiec’s showcase has become Bolesławiec’s nightmare, because the view of this little pond is very sad.
Is it really so difficult to take care of planting greenery around the pond and feeding the swans and ducklings, which are very hungry and injure one another out of hunger? Do we want the place so many Bolesławiec residents visit to look like this?
[…] At the little pond in the center of Bolesławiec there is something made of wood, something that is frightening in appearance and that residents relaxing in the suburban park have to look at. I cannot understand why the councillors of the City of Bolesławiec, who should serve society, are doing nothing about this, knowing that it is the most frequently visited place in Bolesławiec, which should be our showcase but is an embarrassment.
“In 2017, we have planned supplementary plantings of ground-covering shrubs along the pond’s banks, as well as improving the attachment of the plastic mesh on the pond’s fence,” Grażyna Strzyżewska, deputy head of the Municipal Housing Management Facility, which looks after the pond on Bankowa Street, told istotne.pl Grażyna Strzyżewska. Moreover, the remaining leaves on the pond’s banks will be raked this year. “The pond, including the water surface, and its surroundings are kept clean on an ongoing basis,” the deputy director of MZGM stresses.
What is more, signs informing visitors of the ban on feeding birds will appear by the pond—signs that have… disappeared. (We reported on the possible consequences of feeding birds in our July 2014 article, What happened to the swan family? We wrote then that one of the cygnets had disappeared. The youngster was poisoned by something it ate. It was taken to a veterinarian and given a very strong antibiotic. The illness passed, and after two days the young swan could return to the pond. Except that… its father began driving it away; he simply did not accept it back.) Grażyna Strzyżewska says: “Feeding the birds at the pond led to the appearance of a rat infestation in the area. If frost freezes the surface of the water, we will feed the birds staying on this body of water, because only then may the birds need our help.”
She adds: “In our opinion, the overall condition of the pond and its surroundings is good.”
What do you think? Do you agree with the Reader or with MZGM? We invite you to discuss it.