a ever. In case your memory is short, the last attempt to conduct an aerial wolf massacre in nor- theastern B.C. ended with the resignation of then-environment minister Tony Brummet who, it turned out, was in bed with a coalition of foreign big-game hunters and local guide outfit- ters. Between them, Brummet and his pals were found to be or- chestrating a massive plot to turn an area nearly half the size of Western Europe into a shooting gallery, even if it meant burning down vast tracts of forest and tisking the spread of disease and parasites among the remaining herds of elk, moose, deer and sheep, The wolf kill was revealed at the time as part of a truly awesome land-grab that is leaving British Columbians in a neo- colonial .servant’s posture, with little or no control over the fate of wildlife in our own province. We're the rubes, believe it. And the wolves are the scape- goats, : A German company, Wiemers and Ernst Hunting and Adven- ture Tours, based in Herne, West Germany, has managed to gain -effective control over a 2,300- square-mile area of the southern y sector of the Muskwa region, us- ing local guides and outfitters as front-men to profit’ from the trophy-hunting industry. Yet even this is just a fragment of the overall sctieme, which is nothing less than the transforia- tion of B.€.’s northern wilderness into an immense game farm, making sure that, the wilderness never goes back to be- ing wild. - : The risks being taken with the bio-system of northern B.C. were — and are — appalling. Of course you can theoretically gun down all the predators, or poison them, or trap them, or burn down entire forests around them, but.in the end,. the textbooks on ecology agree, all you are going to have is a lot of sick hoofed animals. i How many times: does. this have to be repeated before some- one ‘in Victoria ‘finally looks | beyond the bottom. line? The wolf goes after the’ weak, sick animals. | f The humar hunters, in stark contrast, go after the biggest, healthiest bulls. The gene pool of the herd is inevitably weakened. A few generations down the road, ‘‘die-offs’’ begin to eradicate the sickly offspring UNDER STEPHEN Rogers, the Socred government has started attacking wolves from the air again. This time, the level of deceit — as | intend to show — is worse than LUNGS ARE FOR LIFE § Support Your Lung Association Bob Hunter @ strictly personal ® which are all that remain. This isn't a matter of theory. It's proven fact. We have only to look at the fate of the Big Horn sheep in the Kootenays, which are in danger of extinction despite elaborate efforts to save them, including the burning of winter range to cncourage foliage growth, seeding, herd transplan- ting, drug treatments and bag limits. On a gigantic scale, this is what lies in store for the clk, deer, moose and sheep of northern B.C. if the hunting empires have their way, But all this is general stuff. Anybody secking a true picture of the deception behind the gov- ernment’s wolf-kill program need look no further than at Victoria's own regulations concerning the hunting of moose in B.C. Throughout mast of the pro- vince, ‘‘only’? 6,372 moose are allowed to be shat this year. In- cidentally, there have been 24,000 applications for this privilege. In other words, regulation does ex- ist. even if the limits are ignored by poachers who take at least as msily moose again anyway. But in the Kechika and Muskwa areas, where the wolf- kill is being carried out, there are no bag limits on moose! In other words, the moose populations there are deemed by the province’s own biologists to be so stable and unthreateiied by natural predators that they ap- parently don’t bother to restrict hunting! Asked (to comment on this, Austin Pelton, the environment minister who took over after the discredited Tony Brummet resigned, says he can’t say anything, but admits that he has been ‘‘put on the spot.” Thus, it is a question for Stephen Rogers, the man now responsible for B.C.’s wildlife. Indeed, Mr. Rogers, why the wolf extermination program in an area where the moose are con- sidered so abundant that hunters are allowed to enter unchecked? The answer, obviously, is that in the ‘‘wolf-kill zone” the gov- ernment is catering to big-game hunters from afar, and thus to the absentee owners of the hun- ting empires, whereas, in the rest of the province, the common garden-variety British Columbia hunter looking to put some extra meat in his freezer is “‘fair game’’ for regulation. One wildlife regulation for the rich, another for the poor. Is anybody surprised? S New 50 Varieties of Fruit ARRIVALS! Trees to choose from American Hybrids Dolomite Lime Top Quality Cyclone Drop Spreader Begonia Bulbs including 20 kg. > Mor S977 $4Q98 Heather in Bloom $499 Bushy Plonts Hand Pruners Loppers ‘Uvan valley Liaple — gr vf a Fd Anes EXTEND YOUR ea Carden Spot. $798 $998 NORTH VAN WEST VAN 1343 LYNN VALLEY RD. 2558 HAYWOOD AVE. 985-1784 7 922-2613 Haywood Ave. x CE Or. VANCOUVER-VICTORIA BUSINESS DAY. 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