THE TRUTH ABOUT POISON

During the course of my act-
ivities and travels in the
Cassiar area, a number of people
have expressed both interest
and concern as to what really
is involved in a poison set. To
alleviate any of the old mis-
givings about poison, | will
try to explain briefly how |
administer the poison and the
desired results to be obtained.

Firstly, a word about the
old days of poison and persec-
ution. Great quantities of
meat used to be poisoned with
strychnine or 1080 chemicals,
and were then dropped from
aircraft qn river systems and
lakes in a huge wilderness
area, like the whole of the
northern part of the Province.
Many of these baits were never
again checked, usually due to
inaccessibility. With the use
of the two above mentioned
poisons, not only the predator
met with certain death, but
‘all fur bearers, birds of prey,
and scavengers, who were un-
fortunate enough to feed off
the poisoned carcass, died.

All other animals who fed off
any of the poisoned animals,
also were poisoned. And so the
cycle went on and on until un-
told numbers of our wildlife
were inadvertently poisoned due
to indiscriminate and extremely
unwise use of the poisons.

Today, in a problem area
where a certain species of
predator is responsible for
the destruction of well cared
for domestic stock, the owner
is entitled to some protect-
ion from the predator. We now
poison only to destroy the in-
dividual or group of individ-
uals responsible for the dam-
age, and not as an excuse to
poison whole populations of
animals. If a predator is
killina domestic stock, just
enouah poison is used to kill
that particular animal and is
placed in such a way as to be

out of sight of birds and
smaller animals. Cyanide poi-
son is used in small baits wh-
ich the individual animal can
swallow, and these small baits
are then placed away from the
kill. In this way, birds,
furbearers and scavenaers can
continue to feed on a kill
which is free of any poison,
Also cyanide has the added ad-
vantage of workina on only one
animal and does not start a
chain reaction in a wildlife
population as does 1080 or
strychnine. As soon as the cy-
anide powder comes in contact
with moisture, it forms a
gas, killina the animal and
rendering that animal harm-
less to any other oraanism
which feeds on it.

| would like to conclude
by sayina that the predator
has a definite and valuable
place in the scheme of thinas

-and some of the old tales

of the '"'nuisance'' animals
have been lona discounted
through prolonged scientif-
ic studies and documentation.
So please parents before you
tell the kids a bedtime
story, make sure its not the
one about "'Little Red

Ridina Hood and the Bia

Bad Wol f''.

-B, Baldwin,
Conservatton Officer

ot t. te t.

Youre Only As Old
As You Look

During a lull in the dotnas

at the atseotheque, the airl
troulstvely declared, "Let's
get marrted, George. I don't
want to watt around until I'r
85 and have wrinkles, baas
under my eyes and a not belly!

t

"Well," Georae renlied, "tf

that's the way you're qoina to

Look at 35, let's forget it."

x * * x 4 4

Telegraph News...December
(Lost tn Jim's parka pocket for

mo. at ,
a fev weekal }

Xmas mail arrived here on
Friday, Dec, 27th, and the line-
up at the post office must have
included every able-bodied per-
son (and some who were obviously
not-so-able-bodied) in town.
Since much of the mail was over
a month past due, the post off-
ice was piled to the ceilina
with packages and parcels of al]
sizes: We are told to mail
early for Xmas and to order
merchandise even earlier, but it
doesn't seem to matter, it still
comes late. Oh well, it was a
dandy Xmas just the same, the
weather was good and most of us
still hadn't come down with
the flu.

If you've never been in Tele-
graph Creek on New Year's Eve
you've missed something. Unless
you're afraid of auns. Richt at
midnight everyone in the villace
who owns a gun (and who doesn't’
fires a box of ammo into the
New Year's air. You'd swear
there was a war on. And in all
these many years that this pra-
ctise has been observed, not a
single bit of damage or injury
has occurred, which speaks
pretty well for local aqun-hand-
ling ability. In the case of
this family, injury to anyone

(except maybe to ourselves) is
unlikely, as we are a family of
gun-bugs and scientists, so we
not only load our ammunition
blank, we make our own powder
just for the occasion. Noisy,
terribly bright and scary, but
safe. So far.

Where have all the wolves come
from? My, what a year for them!
Sians of them everywhere, even
in the schoolyard. And still
hardly a moose in sight. Guess
the wolves are runnino them
ragged. We heard that Bobby Bal!
has lost another of his horses
to them, practically in his
yard,