The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

8 - Orono Weekly Times, Wednesday, January 21, 2004 Basic Black by Arthur Black If you go down in the woods today You like strawberries? Me too. Janet Connors used to like strawberries, but she kinda went off them after she opened a basket of strawberries strawberries in her kitchen and found a bug-eyed member of the genus Hylidae staring back at her. Actually, all members of the genus Hylidae are bugeyed bugeyed - they're tree frogs. Janet Connors kitchen scenario scenario might have made some sense if she lived in Tampa or even Vancouver, but she lives in Ottawa and this happened in January. How does a live tree frog wind up on your kitchen counter in the middle of a Canadian winter? Simple. It came in with the groceries. There's a lot of that going on these days. A shopper in Brockville found a black widow spider in a bunch of grapes last summer. summer. A grocery worker in Montreal fainted after a tarantula tarantula scuttled out of a bunch of bananas and ran across her hand. We live in a global village. If we want tropical fruits and vegetables on our table in winter, we better be prepared to run into the odd tropical hitchhiker. I prefer not to think of them as intruders; more as interspecies emissaries. emissaries. . Let's face it: we humans are crowding all the other terrestrial terrestrial tenants on just about every front. There's bound to be some confrontations, and not all of them as benign as a tree frog hopping out of a strawberry basket. Take for instance, the bears. You've heard about the bear problem? Big story in the Wall Street Journal last month. More than 1,000 bear-versus-man encounters last year alone. People, found bears raiding their garbage cans, pulling down bird feeders, feeders, snarling at backyard dogs. Fifty-seven bears actually barged into people's homes. And where did this happen - Prince George? Sioux Lookout? Somewhere in the Yukon? Nope. In New Jersey. Black bears in the suburban suburban and rural corners of The Garden State are suddenly and unaccountably breeding like crazy. As their numbers climb they get more and more aggressive about seeking out food. There are ominous changes in bear behaviour on this side of the border too. Last year, wildlife officials in British Columbia heard a new beef from deer hunters. They complained of being 'scared off by bears arriving AFTER the hunters had shot and killed a deer. Major cultural adaptation here: the bears were, responding responding to the sound of a gunshot, but instead of running away, they were treating it as a dinner dinner gong. Could it be that animals are wising up? That after millennia. millennia. of being hounded by humans they've decided to turn around and hunt us? Last week's Globe and Mail carried a story out of England about an angler being killed by a fish. Stanley King, who was recovering from an operation, was fishing fishing on the banks of the Thames when he hooked what was estimated to be a 3-5 lb. barbel (It's a fish, Arnold). The fish managed to drag King, in his weakened condition, condition, into the water. The man then got entangled in the line from a second rod, was swept up by -the current, and drowned. Wedding Cakes • Cokes for o\\ Occasions • Pastries-Donuts-Pies • Bread & Buns 905-983-9779 Northcutt Elliott Funeral Home THOUGHTFULNESS, SERVICE & CONCERN A Family Owned Business, Offering: Traditional Funeral Services Pre-arranged & Prepaid Services - Cremation Arrangements Alternatives to Traditional Funerals - Out of'lown Shipping CORY KUIPERS - PRESIDENT 905-623-5668 OFF STREET PARKING Shades of Moby Dick. Perhaps it's time to end our dog-eat-dog relationship with the other species and sue for peace. If so, we could sure use a guy like Andrew Larkey. Andrew's an Australian entrepreneur whose latest overture to the animal world is a sure-fire winner: flavoured designer water. For dogs. ■ Yes, friends, charcoal-filtered charcoal-filtered and laboratory-purified Dog Plus K-9 water, in flavours ranging from chicken and corn to liver and bacon is now available in better pet stores everywhere for only $2:70 Canadian a bottle. "Dogs get bored with plain water," explained Mister Larkey. "They deserve variety variety just as much as people." Well, of course they do, Andrew. But more important, Dog Plus K-9 water sends out a powerful message to the animal world. It shows them that we're ready to bury the hatchet. Not to mention the 30.06 and the 12-gauge. It's a message that may take some time to reach the marauding bears of New Jersey and the murderous barbels barbels of the United Kingdom, but Rome wasn't built in a day. We'll convert domestic animals first. We'll win the hearts and minds (such as they are) of the Pekineses and the Pomeranians, then we'll move on to the Fox Terriers and German Shepherds. And one day we'll even have pit bulls eating out of (instead of just eating) our hands. But before that gladsome time, some handy advice, should you one day find your leg being 'romanced' by an amorous pit bull: Fake an orgasm. Non-Smoking Week helps Durham prepare for Smoke-Free By-law WHITBY, ON, January 15, 2004 - Durham Region Health Department will celebrate celebrate National Non-Smoking Week, Jan. 18 to 24, by helping helping area residents to prepare for the new Regional Smoke- Free By-law, which takes effect on June 1. As voted by Regional Council on Dec. 4, 2002, Durham Region now joins over 100 communities across Ontario that have passed smoke-free by-laws to protect protect residents from exposure to second-hand smoke. According to the Ontario Tobacco, Research Unit, each year second-hand ' smoke causes between 1,100 and 7,800 deaths in Canada, with at least one-third of these deaths occurring in Ontario. Durham Region's Smoke-Free By-law will restrict smoking in all public places and workplaces across the Region including restaurants, restaurants, bars, bowling alleys and billiard halls. Tobacco enforcement officers from Durham Region Health Department will enforce the by-law through ongoing inspections of public places and workplaces, and will respond to complaints from owners, employers, employees employees or the public. "This bylaw is a very important step in the protection protection of the public's health in Durham Region," says Dr. Robert Kyle, Durham Region Medical Officer of Health. "Over the next few months, Health Department 53 Division Street Bowman ville, Ontario LIC 2Z8 Because you love your life. MedicAlerV'.The bracelet with an emergency hotline linked to your medical record. Call 1-866-734-9422 or visit www.medicalert.ca. <SD Medic Alert Lets You Live Life. staff will be working with members of our community through a number of initiatives initiatives to prepare for full implementation of the bylaw on June 1." One such initiative is an upcoming workshop to help local businesses ensure that their workplace is ready for the by-law. Entitled "Preparing Your Workplace for Durham Region's Smoke- Free By-law", this workshop will be held on Jan. 21, . Weedless Wednesday, and will provide information on how the by-law will be enforced and how the Health Department can support employers' efforts to administer administer the by-law in the workplace. workplace. The workshop will also give a detailed summary of the by-law and provide information on helping employees quit smoking and how employers can support these efforts. Throughout National Non-Smoking Week, Health Department staff will also be hosting a number of displays across the Region to provide area residents with information information on the upcoming by-law, and also resources and tips on quitting smoking. For a schedule of area displays or to obtain information on the smoke-free by-law, visit the Region's Web site at www.region.durham.on.ca. Information may also be obtained by calling the Health Department at 905- 723-8521 or 1-800-841-2729. SOS Continued from page 5 premium increase is passed along to snowmobilers through a higher trail permit fee. As a result, riders are being hit with a double whammy of premium-related premium-related increases for both types of coverage, and snowmo- biling is becoming too costly costly for many, including families families and seniors. "Other tourism and recreation recreation sectors are also suffering suffering the hardship of unaffordable unaffordable .çr unavailable liability insurance coverage," noted Burns. "If this crisis is not addressed immediately by the Province, it will hut not only recreational snowmo- biling, but also many rural municipalities and small 1 tourism operators." The SOS Campaign marks the first time in recent memory that key players in the snowmobile industry have united to address such a crucial issue. Snowmobilers can join in by sending an SOS to their own MPP on line at one of the following web sites: www.ofsc.on.ca; www.snowmobiler.com; www.snowtraxtv.com; www.snowmobilertv.com; www.snowgoercanada.com or www.supertraxmag.com. To communicate to Minister Bradley, SOS is asking snowmobilers to send in a mailer card which will be included in the spring issues of most snowmobile magazines magazines and at many snowmobile snowmobile dealers.