For that matter, please don't spell out “Hillary Clinton” - or anything else - with the “L” on Mount Jumbo, said Marilyn Marler, the University of Montana's natural areas specialist.
Although snow still blankets the hillsides, the ground is not frozen and plants are emerging, with some in early stages of blooming, Marler said Monday.
“I would like to encourage people to stop treating our hillsides as billboards that are just waiting to be filled with our opinions,” she said. “I have been working hard to teach people that putting signs on Mount Sentinel (and Mount Jumbo and the North Hills) is destructive to the native prairie plants that live there.
“This is especially true in spring, since all the wildflowers and bunchgrasses are waking up. Putting up signs causes erosion, cooks the plants under the sign material, and usually there is a bunch of garbage left behind because no one ever wants to take down the sign.”
Marler said she became concerned about the potential situation after reading several local blogs that suggested welcoming candidates to town by using the giant letters.
Marler said she doesn't want to dampen people's excitement if presidential candidate Barack Obama comes to town, and when presidential candidate Hillary Clinton visits on Sunday.
But she also doesn't want Missoula's treasured natural areas to be trampled.
“The ‘L' and the ‘M' are probably here to stay,” she said, “but let's leave the rest of the hillsides alone and respect the non-human components of our beautiful city.”
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