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.