Lyle Gold. and Sons and R. Pelletier Enterprises are

In an interview Friday Lyle
Gold and Roman Pelletier said
they regret the move, but they're
left with no choice. ‘‘My biggest

‘concern is the people I have to

put out of work,’ Gold re-
marked. Pelletier and Gold have
logged in the Hazelton-
Kitwanga-Terrace area for more
than.15 years, and each provides
work for about 25 hourly em-
ployees and subcontractors.
Most of the workers live in Kit-
wanga. ‘The shutdown will idle
millions of dollars. worth of

equipment.

Gold ‘said . that since” “1987,

” while costs associated with log-
ging ‘have | gone up steadily, ‘the
": price.-Westar is paying for logs. {
‘harvested on its forest ‘licenses - J

has actually gone down by about

. $2 per cubic meter, a decline of

15 percent. Contract prices are
established with each different
setting the company bids on,

‘and with the last one, Gold saw

the writing on the wall.
: He calculated a bid based on

skidder and grapple-yard

removal, which averaged out at
$13.83 per cubic meter on a con-
tract of just over 17,000 cubic
meters.. Westar, he said, gave

him a take-it-or-leave-it offer of.
‘$12. Last year his company cut

150,000 cubic meters of timber

‘of Westar’s Tree Farm License

#51 and realized a net profit of
one percent on the operation; a

one dollar drop in that rate, he

said, would put him nearly
$100,000 in the red over the
coming year.

Despite the numbers, Gold

, said, there are still contractors
-who will probably take the of-

fer, ‘‘They tell me they’d like to

_ refuse it, but they’re not in a

“: position to do that,”’ he said.

-. Pelletier noted that he made
good money logging for Westar
in 1985 and 1986, but there has
_been a steady deterioration since
“1987, coinciding with a series of
changes. in Westar’s upper

wl ‘management at Hazelton and

~ -Kitwanga.
“anyone who knows logging there

8 “sammore,” he said.

“You can’t find

- Arbitration may be
the answer

‘for contract logging services. . .

wo major loggers call

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YEickar.

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Phone 635-7840
x -635-7269

it quits |

G.id and Pelletier are not ina Association. has seen many may come forward within the

; . pulling out of the woods. Both companies say they can unique situation. Frank Dougel . similar problems over the past next week through government
no. longer operate at the prices Westar is offering them of the Central Interior Loggers’ decade, and he says a solution

continued on page 2

Terrace animal control officer Frank Bowsher com-
mends a local motorist who found this loon besude
Highway 16 Saturday and delivered it to the shelter. He

says the shelter is not set up to provide medical atten-.
tion, but with more public support they could do more. .

Unexpected stopover here for loon

The Terrace Animal Shelter is

.currently host to an unusual

boarder... a loon.

A local motorist discovered
the injured bird beside Hwy. 16
just east of the Copper River
bridge; according to animal con-
trol officer Frank Bowsher, de-
pending on the severity of its in-
juries, the loon could be saved
the trouble of flying south.

Terrace Conservation Officer
Ken. Hoffman explains that if
the injuries are determined to be
minor the Kitimat SPCA will
simply release the bird in
Douglas Channel, If, on the
other hand, the injuries might

affect the loon’s normal migra-
tion to southern waters it will be
placed on a flight to Vancouver
and receive medical treatment at
the Surrey SPCA center before

being released.

Officials from the Kitimat
SPCA will be examining the
bird, but Hoffman says it’s dif-
ficult to determine the extent of
any injuries at this point because
of the strange nature of the loon
itself. The loon likes to rest dur-
ing its southern migration and
will often settle down on some
obscure body of water before
continuing its flight. During
rainy weather, though, the loon
sometimes mistakes a wet high-
way for a river or stream and
lands on the slick surface, Un-
fortunately, the loon, so
graceful in water, is a disaster on
land. It can’t-walk on land and it

can’t take off either, It’s possi-

ble that this is what happened to
the Animal Shelter boarder.
Whatever the fate of this

loon, though, Bowsher com-
mends the actions of the
motorist who delivered it to the
shelter. He explains that the
Animal Shelter isn’t set up to of-
fer medical attention to injured
animals, but shelter staff do
know what to do and who to
call. This and the fact that
everyone who works at the
shelter is an animal lover is a
plus for any domestic and wild
animal in trouble.

There is another side to the
story, however, and there is a
way for the public to help. The
Animal Shelter operates under
city contract and has a fixed
budget. Bowsher explains that
this often means withholding
medical treatment until the
owner, if any, can be found. The
shelter does maintain an emer-

gency fund but at the present

time, it contains only $100 —

not enough to help a seriously
injured animal.
In the past, B.C. Hydro union

members and former Skeena-

MLA Frank Howard have been
major contributors to this fund,
but his is only a small segment of
the population. Anyone who
really cares about animals can
donate to the emergency fund.

Bowsher says $1,000 is a reason-

able amount to have on hand, as
a single emergency can easily
cost $300 to $400, and the
shelter is reimbursed if the
owner is found. Donations will
always be needed, though; many
injured animals turned into the
shelter are wild or abandoned
and their care becomes a com-
munity responsibility.

Another side of raw log exports emerges - page

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