Editor’s note: The article published in the December-January issue of the Lumber Worker on the Leg- Hold Trap, has provoked con- siderable controversy and dis- cussion. Because of the in- terest the article generated we are publishing three more letters from readers wishing to express their views. The Editor: Re: Canada’s -Shame (December 1976 January 1977) I would like to suggest to you that you stick to one Union in Wood and leave trapping to trappers, the Fish and Wildlife Branch and the Trappers Asso- ciation of B.C. I am enclosing a copy of “British Columbia Trapping Regulations Synopsis 1976 - 1977”’. I hope you read them, also a letter I received from the Fish & Wildlife Branch in regards to British Columbia Trapper Education Program which was put on in several different places in B.C. as a joint program with the B.C. Trappers Association. Your timely article in the Lumber Worker is about 40 years behind the times, so tell your “‘Do gooders” to attack fishermen for using ‘“‘barbed hooks”, that might be some- thing new anyway. ’ Sincerely, Chuck Varney. The Editor: Our Association is most pleased with the generous response from so many IWA members. Many have now joined our Association and / or have offered their personal help. We are most pleased. One of the letters published in February / March issue, did concern us greatly by suggest- ing that enough has already been said or pictured about the cruelties of our trapping methods. Actually, many of our dedicated members also share in this frustration and wish that a solution could be immediately found so we THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER a GOOD OLD DAYS would not even have to talk about the problem any more. The leg-hold trap has remained virtually unchanged simply because not enough Canadians are yet aware of the cruelty or who have not taken any action to cause a change in legisla- tion. We too wish our B.C. Gov- ernment would give some priority to this issue. They could solve this obvious cruelty by decisive action — and they will — when enough Canadians demand it. Our B.C. Government wishes too that the problem would simply disappear. They con- tribute $3,000 per year to a Federal Provincial Committee whose purpose is to speed humane trap invention and development. $3,000 is no solution. This small sum would hardly pay the patent costs on just one invention. Our Association has asked our present B.C. Government to provide a grant of $4,000 to help one inventor with his idea of a humane trap.‘ Their an- swer was ‘no’. Many more trapper-inventors need this same kind of financial support, but no one seems to care. Talk about this problem we must! : Yours truly, (Mrs.) Bunty Clements, President— APFA The Editor: I noted your story in the Lumber Worker recently on the humane trapping issue. I was frankly quite disgusted that you should print such a piece and I promised myself that I would write and take both you and the article apart. You must know that the article is a reprint of a ten- year-old piece of biased PR work that does little more than flirt with the truth. I am sure that you published the article without doing any research into the subject matter or finding out how times have changed in the last ten years. There are two breeds of men that make commercial use of the renewable resources of the “There's a lot more food mixed with the additives in this one.” province — the logger and the trapper. If statistics were made you would find that the logger and trapper are often the same person. Loggers will trap when they are not logging and trappers will log when they are not trapping. This is particularly true on the Coast. In the In- terior, trappers often double as loggers or ranchers. The logger and trapper both share the same forests so how can you accept as absolute truth material garnered from the Association For The Pro- tection Of Fur-Bearing Animals? We are your brothers and wish tO remain so. In your attack you do not consider the danger you create in the forests to the very animals you charge us with trapping in an inhumane way. You have obviously not given any thought to what happens to the animals in an area of a forest logged and slash-burned by a logging crew. Ask one of your members who is a trapper too, what happens to animals in an area that has been logged clean. He will tell you that the animals are doomed. Nature has provided a system of checks and counter checks to control the species. A sudden influx of animals into one area from another means certain death from starvation for a great number and starvation is just an ugly a death as any leg- hold trap.° I am not blaming IWA members for the article, the responsibility rests on you as editor. I would suggest sir, that you only publish material that concerns the workers and refrain from getting carried away with subjects you know nothing about. L. Watmouth, Past Secretary, Twin River Timber, Sub-Local, Terrace TOKYO — A giant seaplane. which one day may be able to carry 1200 passengers has been designed by a Japanese air- craft manufacturer. : The maker, Shin Meiwa Industry, believes the plane someday will replace the jumbo jet as a high-capacity airliner which today accom- modates about 350 passengers. The plane, which would have three decks, would cost $1.7 billion to develop, according to Tadao Uno, the company’s aircraft production director. Uno said Shin Meiwa was developing a new material made from carbon compounds for the fuselage to prevent decay caused by seawater. It would fly above 32,800 feet, carry 120 tons, have a range of 4400 miles and travel at about 525 mph. NEW CANADIAN APRIL-MAY, 1977 A man has been arrested in New York for attempting to extort funds from ignorant and suspicious people by exhibiting a device which he claims will convey the human voice any distance over metallic wires so that it will be heard by the listener at the other end. He calls the in- strument a telephone. Well informed people know that it is impossible to-transmit the human voice over wires. — Anews item from a 1868 New York newspaper. (from CWC Federation Paper) The slate headed by Lloyd McBride has won the elections to the executive of the United Steelworkers of America, giving Canadian Lynn Williams a top international post. Williams, former District 6 director, was elected inter- national secretary of the union, which voted to elect a new five- man international executive. The new international of- ficers are: president, Lloyd McBride; secretary, Lynn Williams; treasurer, Frank McKee, vice-president ad- ministration, Joe Odorcich; and vice-president human affairs, Leon Lynch. Gerry Docquier defeated his opponent, Don Taylor, for the Canadian directorship. Stew Cooke was elected director of District 6 over Gib Gilchrist. In District 3, incumbent Len Stevens held on to his post, defeating a challenge by Ron Douglas. District 5 director Jean Gerin-Lajoie was acclaimed. McBride, current director of District 34, joined the union when it was still called the Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee. He was elected president: of Local 1295 at age 22 He is chairman of the USWA castings and forging industry conference, which sets bargaining priorities for some 75,000 members. In District 34, which covers a five-state middle west area of the U.S., he is active in the Democratic party. McBride’s opponent, Ed Sadlowski, was director of the USWA’s District 31, with head- quarters in Chicago. Lynn Williams, the new secretary of the union, has been a member of the USWA since 1947. He was a vice- president of the Ontario NDP. As area supervisor of the Niagara region from 1957 to 1965, Williams doubled the number of organized plants and offices, and increased membership in the union 100%. After winning the election as district 6 director in 1973, he also served on the executive of the CLC. : IS GOVERNMENT HIDING SPRAY CAN Canadians have almost grown accustomed to foot- dragging and inaction by gov- ernment and corporations in the face of possible environ- mental damage caused by various industries. Consequently, when govern- ment suddenly decides to bana particular product because of possible hazards, and when the industry itself voluntarily complies, it suggests doom- sday is at hand. Such is the case with the recent federal announcement that all non-essential uses of flurocarbons in spray cans will be banned by 1978, and that the aerosol industry itself has voluntarily agreed to the ban. Flurocarbons _ the chemical propellants that push the hair spray, deodorant, and hundreds of other products out of spray cans — are said by some scientists to result in a breakdown of the ozone layer of the earth’s atmosphere. The ozone layer, which becomes depleted as it comes in contact with rising fluoru- carbons, is what filters out most of the cancer-causing ultraviolet rays of the sun. Ozone depletion would not only result in increased skin cancer, especially in equitorial areas, but could also raise the tem- perature of the planet and DANGER? harm plants and animals, according to some scientists. But all this is just conjecture at the moment. According to a federal government report on the subject ‘‘our knowledge of the effects of this ultraviolet radiation on the entire ecosystem is extremely limited and it is precisely what we don’t know that causes great concern.” Now that’s a switch. The same government authorities and industrial profiteers who usually demand production of a sufficient number of dead bodies to demonstrate proof of hazards are suddenly con- cerned about what they alleged is only a possible danger. Not only is the government’s concern unprecedented, but the aerosol industry, both in Canada and the U.S., is co- operating and voluntarily phasing out of spray cans. All of which suggests that maybe more is known about the damage done by fluoro- carbons than is being released to the public. When you con- sider that, even if we stopped using spray cans right now, already-released fluoro- carbons will rise to the ozone layer for the next 15 years, it presents a pretty scary pic- ture.