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8 - Orono Weekly Times, Wednesday, January 22,2003 ) Basic Black by Arthur Black Nothing stuns like a deer Here's a little quiz for you to while away the time waiting for the barkeep to refill the pretzel bowl - what do you reckon is the most dangerous animal in North America? Well, the Yanks are 'way ahead of us on this one. They've got scorpions, diamondback rattlers, rattlers, coral snakes and black widow spiders not to mention 'gators, great white sharks and Jesse Helms. But Canada can post some pretty impressive predators. . Your Rocky Mountain grizzly grizzly - there's a fella you don't want to pester for spare change. Cougars pack some pretty impressive switchblade cuticles, not to mention their dental armoiy. We've got our veiy own viper, the Massasauga rattlesnake, rattlesnake, not to mention Wood Buffalo bison, wolverines, tim ber wolves, musk oxen, wharf rats, -rabid bats - heck, even the lowly mosquito can punch your ticket if it happens to be packing • the West Nile Virus in its stinger. But none of these can hold a candle candle nor a canine tooth to the most dangerous critter on the continent. continent. If s Rudolph. Which is to say your common, common, timid, vegetarian, non-belligerent non-belligerent whitetail deer. This year, Bambi and his brethren will knock off more North American primates than all predatory forms of wildlife combined. And how do they do it? The hard way, mostly - by stepping out in front of our cars and trucks at inopportune moments. Needless Needless to say, this manoeuvre hurts them a lot more than it does us. In the U.S., deer/vehicle collisions collisions constitute more than a mil lion traffic 'incidents' eveiy year. Mostly, the deer involved pay with their lives. Even so, more than 29,000 Americans can expect to be injured in such a crash in any given year, more than 200 of them fatally. The numbers here in Canada aie lower but no. less alarming. Even Saskatchewan, which boasts the most wide-open of spaces, wracks up 3,620 deer/vehicle collisions annually. And we've got no one to blame but ourselves. Since the day the white man arrived we've systematically wiped out the wolf, cougar and bear populations populations in most parts of the continent. continent. This has left the deer bereft of natural predators. Which means the deer population has exploded to.. .well, to levels they probably enjoyed before the pale guys in the big sailboats first Paid. Advertisement Port Hope Area Initiative New hours at the Project Information Exchange New hours at the Project 7 Information Exchange, 110 Walton Street 'in Port Hope, mean the public can now drop in five afternoons a week for information about the Port Hope Area Initiative. Other visits may be made by appointment. Sandy Holmes staffs the storefront information office Monday through Friday, from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m., and is busy answering questions about the Initiative and low-level radioactive waste, receiving public input and helping people find the documents they need. Today's column includes three questions Sandy frequently receives. ..■ >,■ - ■ -v. / - *?r.v, §|§Fr - J, T " ■ .. -j Sandy Holmes at the Project Information Exchange has lots of information on low-level radioactive waste and the Port Hope Area Initiative. How will you make sure all the waste is cleaned up? R e ' c e n t 1 y completed airborne and road wiy gamm a radiation§ surveys are two of t|e many tools t h e |jo w - Le v e 1 Radioactive Waste ManageSent Office (LLRWltjjO) will use to locate Ipd catalogue areas of contamination in the Port Hope area. Later thi* year, an exterior and interior property resurvey in parts of Port Hope will also begin. The ongoing Construction Monitoring Program and the Radiological Status Letters issued Improperly Improperly transactions are two additional ways the LLRWMO updates existing information or checks previously unsurveyed sites. Does living here pose an extra health risk? Several studies, including a Health Canada/ Canadian Nuclear. Safety Commission study released in 2002, indicate that living with low- level radioactive waste in the Port Hope area docs not increase a person's risk of cancer or other diseases. In the present circumstances, the radiation exposure of a person engaged in normal, daily living activities in the Port Hope area does not differ measurably from that of a person living in Visit the Project Information Exchange, 110 ' Call (905) 885-0291 Toll-free 1 Low-Level Radioactive most communities in Southern Ontario. Radiation is a fact of life. Natural radiation comes from outer space, the ground and the food ' we eat. The background level of radiation in the Port Hope area is lower than that of Banff, Alberta, or Denver, Colorado, the "mile-high city," where higher altitudes result in increased cosmic radiation. What does the long-term solution involve? Local municipalities, with the support of the Canadian government, have proposed community-driven solutions to consolidate, isolate and manage LLRW for future generations. This $260-million major cleanup project also includes remuneration for the host municipalities, economic benefits and remediation of non-radioactive industrial sites, area roads and the Port Hope harbour. Detailed environmental and technical studies and extensive public consultation are under way to support the Port Hope Area Initiative, ultimately leading to licensing of the long-term low-level radioactive waste management facilities by federal regulatory authorities. These facilities to safely isolate and store the waste arc expected to be completed in about 10 years. Proposed facilities in Port Hope and Clarington will handle only local historic low- Icvcl radioactive waste, along with specified historic local industrial wastes. I'oiul loi'vAm iNimrm: Moving Ahead This regular column is published by the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office to inform local residents of progress on the clean-up and safe long-term storage of low-level radioactive waste in the area. For copies d this column or additional information call 905 8850291, or visit the Project Information Exchange at 110 Walton Street in Port Hope. Wallon Street, Port Hope 1:00-5:00 Mon. to Fri. 8(i(i 255-2755 www.llrwmo.org Waste Management Office landed. Except that it isn't the same 'here' anymore. We've gobbled up hundreds of thousands of square miles of natural deer habitat with our logging, our subdivisions and our road networks. networks. Which means more and more deer on less and less land. And that means trouble, hi many parts of North America the vast numbers of deer are stripping stripping the forests of vegetation. Gary Alt, a wildlife biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission fears that eventually eventually "everything will be lost. The deer population will not be healthy and scores of other species will suffer." Interestingly enough, the situation situation is reversed on Vancouver Island. There, deer herds are said to be in decline. One of the provincial provincial governments more brilliant proposed solutions? Kill off a slew of wolves and mountain lions to 'take the pressure off the deed. And incidentally, leave more deer for human hunters to make sport with: There's another island that could teach us all an important lesson in wildlife management. It's called Isle Royale. You'll find it tucked into the northwest corner corner of Lake Superior. Isle Royale is uninhabited by humans, but has a goodly population of wolves, moose and deer. Logging, hunting and development development have been banned on Isle Royale for most of the last century century and all of this one. The animals animals have been pretty much left to themselves. So did the deer and moose strip the island bare? Did the wolves proliferate and eat the deer and moose right down to the last rib eye steak? Nope, the populations stabilized stabilized themselves naturally, without without benefit of biologists, government government planners or gun-toting 'harvesters'. 'harvesters'. We tend to forget that Mother Nature somehow muddled through for thousands of years before we came along to help her. Which means we really should re-think that notion about the white tail deer as Public Enemy Number One. The most dangerous animal in North America isn't the ungulate in the headlights. It's the monkey behind the wheel. 0 The Annual Meeting §j f - : . - of,he Ü § DURHAM CENTRAL 0 1 AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY § M is* set for ® . Saturday. January at Orono Arena (upstairs). at 1:00 p.m. -r © Ontario The Ministry of Public Safety and Security seeks applicants for the Durham Regional Police Services Board The Durham Regional Police Services Board governs the police service and is responsible for overseeing budget, setting setting policy and other administrative tasks. Applicants should be able to commit 15-20 hours per month to board duties. An annual honorarium will be paid by the Regional Municipality. Experience in policy-making and budgeting, contract negotiation, negotiation, volunteer work in community organizations, good written written and verbal communications skills and previous experience on boards or committees would be considered assets. Interested applicants may forward a detailed resume by February 7, 2003, to the: Selection Systems and Appointments Unit Ministry of Public Safety and Security 12 th Floor, 25 Grosvenor Street Toronto ON M7A 2113 Fax: (416) 314-3536 Tel: (416) 314-9335 fl®. w r V $$ wr 3* Orono Coventry Full Menu 4 Main Street., Orono, Ontario • 983-9009 à* 58 \Jà ^*<3 v