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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1987-01-14, Page 10PAGE 1 i. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 1987. The International Scene Japanese overtake us in personal incomes BY RAYMOND CANON Twenty-five years ago the aver­ age income of the Japanese people was about one-quarter what it was in North America. As 1986 drew to a close, the latest figures released on national incomes showed that this 1986 was the year when the Japanese pulled ahead of us and, while they are not yet the richest country in the world in terms of national income, they are climbing up the ladder. Some day they might even catch up to the richest of all people, the Swiss. There is a certain fascination in watching the Japanese improve on their lot in life since I am old enough to recall the day when the Japanese economy was a sham­ bles. The country had been devastated by American bombing and the two atomic bombs were just the icing on the cake. Germany Wild turkeys make come-back Hunt to begin in May Sportsmen are eagerly antici­ pating spring when the first wild turkey season in Ontario since the early 1900s will take place in the Napanee area. A wild turkey reintroduction program - started in 1984 by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH) and other conservationists -- has been so successful that the wild turkey population is now large enough to support a controlled hunt. The hunt will be held in May, after mostofthe hens have been bred. Only bearded turkeys, pri­ marily males (known as gobblers), will be hunted. Gobblers will still be seeking out hens, and hunters will be imitating hen calls to lure gobblers within shooting range. A spring hunt for gobblers will not threaten the survival of the wild turkey population. One male usu­ ally breeds a number of females, so a controlled reduction in the number of males does not reduce the population’s reproductive po­ tential, says John Harcus, MNR’s small game and waterfowl pro­ gram co-ordinator. Although wild turkey hunting is new to Ontario hunters, it is extremely popular south of the border. An estimated 1.7 to 2.0 million people hunt wild turkeys annually in the united States, making them one of the most important game animals in the United States, says OFAH Provincial Co-ordinator of Fish and Wildlife Services, Lance Males. “Wild turkeys are by far the most elusive of all game I’ve hunted,” he says. Hunting wild turkeys is a waiting game. Stalking is almost impossi­ ble because they are alert, keen- sighted birds, it is also potentially dangerous as it could lead you to another hunter, mimicking the calls of a wild turkey hen. A hunter should locate a calling spot in open woods, sit down against a large tree and remain still. With a calling device, a hunter can imitate any one of a hen’s many sounds and draw gobblers into shotgun or bow range. There are a variety of devices available which are used to imitate a hen’s call. First-time hunters should start with a hand-held unit such as a box-call or a slate. More experienced hunters use a mouth- held diaphragm, which allows the hands to be free and eliminates the motion of putting down a call and picking up a shotgun. Such movement can easily tip off a gobbler that he is to become someone’s dinner, not someone’s mate. was not in much better shape and bothcountriesbeganthe monu­ mental task of rebuilding their economies in order to provide work for their labour force. There is a certain irony in the fact that having all their industrial plant destroyed in the war was perhaps a blessing in disguise. This meant that the whole country could start with brand new equip­ ment while the other countries in the western world were still stuck with a lot of equipment that had been worked hard for five years and which needed replacement. Of course it also helped that there was a great deal of economic aid from the United States but, in all honesty, there had to be the will to rebuild. The Russians, for one, could tell anybody who cares to listen that modern equipment alone will not do the trick. “Ittakespatience,” Males says. “Whatever you do, don’t call like a gobbler or another hunter could mistake you for one!” Wild turkey hunters will need to wear camouflage clothing to be successful. Even the hands and face should be camouflaged as the appearance of uncamouflaged flesh can alert a wild turkey to the hunter’s presence. Few Ontario hunters have ex­ perience in wild turkey hunting, so OFAH - in co-operation with MNR -- will hold seminars covering special techniques and safety, followed by MNR wild turkey hunter examination. Locations and dates of the seminars will be provided when hunters pick up their application forms for the controlled hunt. Only shotguns and archery equipment will be permitted. However, Lance Males expects few hunters will use archery equipment because of the difficul­ ties involved. The number of hunters will be restricted. Hunters will require a wild turkey tag -- costing $12 -- to participate in the hunt. Ministry officials will survey the number of wild turkeys in the Napanee area this winter to determine how many hunting tags will be sold. No more than 1,000 tags are expected to be issued. If applications exceed the number of tags available, a random draw will determine their alloca­ tion. Hunters must have a valid small-game licence to apply for a wild turkey tag. “I expect hunters will come to Napanee from all parts of Ont­ ario,” John Harcus says. The early May hunt will consist of two consecutive six-day seasons in Wildlife management Units 68 and 71. The first season will run from Monday, May 4, to Saturday, May 9. The second will follow on Monday, May 11, and run to Saturday, May 16. Hours will be restricted to a half-hour before sunrise to noon. Mostofthe hunting will be done on private land, so the permission of landowners is necessary. Trespass laws will be enforced. Wild turkeys are native to several U.S. states and have been successfully introduced in others. Today, wild turkeys are found in 49 states. Americans have thought highly of the birds since the first Thanksgiving. In fact, wild turkeys almost edged out the bald eagle as the United States’ national bird. ‘ ‘Wild turkeys were native to southern Ontario but as mature trees were harvested and land cleared for farmland, the birds lost their habitat,” Harcus says. One interesting comparison be­ tween Japan and Switzerland is that neither country has much in the way of raw material. It is necessary to import what they need to feed their manufacturing sector, turn the raw materials into finished products and sell them to other countries. The same goes for services; out of this comes the realization that the Swiss and the Japanese not only work hard, they use their brains. This is not to say that everything they touch turns to gold. They have had their failures and some rather dramatic ones at that. However, one thing that is worth noticing is the tendency to learn from these failures. Right now the Japanese are trying to rationalize their ship-building industry since they realize that the demand for ships is not what it used to be and in any “This, and possibly unregulated hunting, led to the wild turkey’s demise by the early 1900s.” In the past, provincial officials and sportsmen’s clubs made sev­ eral attempts to reintroduce tur­ keys, but until recently all failed. Past attempts involved pen-raised birds, which were susceptible to disease and dependent on supple­ mentary feeding. Plans quickly fell into place for the reintroduction of wild turkeys when Michigan, a state where wild turkeys havealsobeen success­ fully reintroduced, asked Ontario for some moose. Ontario sent! moose from Algonquin Provincial Park to the State in exchange for wild turkeys from lower Michigan. At the same time, Ontario arranged to trade river otters with Missourifor more wild turkeys. Other states delivered birds as part of trades or as gifts. Since 1984, MNR in conjunction with OFAH and other conserva­ tionists -- has reintroduced 253 wild turkeys from Michigan, Mis­ souri, Iowa, New York and Ver­ mont. ASSOCIATE Radford Auto, Farm & Industrial Parts Ltd. are pleased to announce that Dave McLellan has joined our team Dave is a licenced autobody repairer with eight years experience in his field. He will be serving our customers in the Blyth store as a counter sales person. Dave, bis wife Dianne and son Scott reside at R.R.4, Walton. bidding war they are being under­ cut by the South Koreans. As for the Swiss, they had the same experience with their well-known watch industry but again they have managed to get it back on the right track. Both the Swiss and the Japanese tend to look more at national goals instead of regional ones. Being small countries, it could well be that they are more able to do this than, say, the Canadians who far too often concentrate on regional goals to the detriment of the entire country. I have often heard it said, as aresult of this tendency, that we should imitate the Japanese if we ever want to regain our previous position. I honestly don’t think that this is true; we don’t think like the Japanese, we have different values and if we were to follow them slavishly in our efforts to improve our economy, we would only end up making a bigger mess of the whole thing. If you take a course in econo­ mics, you will learn, I hope, about the law of comparative advantage. Ifwe want to match the Japanese or the Swiss, we are going to have to look at what it is that they do better and let them do it. At the same time we can concentrate on what we do better and, if they have any brains at all, they will come to us for such NOTICE TO THE RESIDENTS OF HULLETT TOWNSHIP A meeting has been arranged with the Ministry of Natural Resourcesand Ducks Unlimitedatthe Hullett Council chambers on TUESDAY,JANUARY20 AT2P.M. You are cordially invited to attend to discuss any problems that you have encountered with the Wetlands Area. HARRY LEAR CLERK-TREASURER products. To cite a couple of examples, the Canadians outshine the Japanese by a considerable margin in the production of petrochemicalsand aluminum. They make better T. V. sets so let’s sell them the two products that we produce more efficiently and use the money to purchase our T.V.’s from Japan. We simply cannot be good at everything and we should not try. I should conclude by pointing out thatthe Japanese think they are better than other countries be­ cause they are ethnically pure while we and the Americans are a mixed society. The prime minister of Japan, Yasujiro Nakasone, said as much in a speech recently and he had to end up apologizing to the Americans for such a statement. However, let’s assume that this is true. How, then, do the Japanese explain why the Swiss are able to rival them since by no stretch of the imagination we can claim that the Swiss are ethnically pure. The country is made up of Germans, French and Italians, not just one pure race. Yet nobody would deny that the Swiss have been every bit assuccessfulas the Japanese in achieving a high level of prosper­ ity. Perhaps the secret lies in using your brains regardless of your ethnic origin.