Page 4-Saturday, October 28, 1978-The Michigan Daily
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor; MI 48109
Eighty-Nine Years of Editorial Freedom
Monarch of north makes comeback
Vol. LXXXIX, No. 45
News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
C"anham' s t
HENS THE Michigan Marching
Band couldn't perform in the
comecoming Day parade due to a
chedule conflict, Parade Chairwoman
1athy Van Wagen turned to high
,cools to find a suitable replacement.
'ut there were no takers. The reason is
hat many high school bands are
ycotting the University because of
thletic Director Don Canham's
'ihdling of band day this year.
Traditionally, a home football game
as designated "Band Day". Every
jichigan high school marching band
as invited to participate in the half-
ihLe show. They were given their seats
ree. One band was chosen as the best,
nd everyone generally had a good
ime. The band members got a thrill
of performing in front of 100,000
ans, and the fans enjoyed the change
n the usual halftime activities.
.This year, however, Mr. Canham
ecided to change the format of Band
ay. First, Mr. Canham changed the
name of Band Day to "Bandayrama."
ext, he decided to hold Bandayrama
*n Michigan Stadium as usual, but on
he day of an away game. The bands
erformed before a small crowd
omprised mainly of parents. Instead
f "playing to thousands of cheering
fans; their music this year fell on
empty seats. Mr. Canham justified this
action on purely capitalistic grounds -
there was too great a demand for
titkets, he said, to give several
thousand away to high school band
niembers. But the effrontery did not
stip there. Mr. Canham charged the
prents $1 to watch their children
perform.
'We fully support the boycott by high
school bands. The athletic department
has ceased to be a part of, the
University. It is basically an
i6dependent corporation, and Mr.
Canham is its mogul. Band Day was
always a refreshing break from the
Usual corporate atmosphere at the
stadium, but now Mr. Canham in his
zejl to increase revenue has denied us
arl the high school students even that
plWasure. Has money become more
iniportant than serving the
orpmunity? In our quest for a national
chm pionship, must we ignore public
sdrvice?
Viand Day was originated as a means
a bringing people into the stadium
back in the pre-Canham days when the
gjnes weren't always sold out. Now
tit the demand for tickets is so great,
'st we sell short these bands that
h 4ed us before for a few extra bucks?
this is just one example of injustice
etrated by the myopic, money--
oranted leadership of the athletic
de artment. The recent increase in
s1 ent basketball season tickets from
$1 to $26 is outrageous. Even tuition
g business
doesn't increase that much that fast.
However, the reason is apparent: it is
a seller's market.
A few years ago, basketball games
were sparsely attended. Then, with the
addition of Rickey Green and Phil
Hubbard, plus consecutive trips to the
NCAA tournatment, ticket demand
increased dramatically. For the past
two years, nearly every game has been
a sellout. So, with perfect business
logic, the athletic department decides
to hike ticket prices over 100 per cent
for students - when demand increases
and supply remains constant, price
rises.
More tragic still, is the fact that in
both football and basketball, students
frequently sit in the end zone or high up
behind the basket while those willing
and able to pay higher prices, watch
the action from choice seats. In both
sports, one-fourth of the good seats are
left for students, one-fourth for faculty,
and one-half for alums and the public.
The Daily has always insisted that
students deserve seats between the 20-
yard-lines in football, and a larger
proportion of the good seats in
basketball, but our cries have gone
unanswered. Such policies are in effect
at Indiana, Illinois and Northwestern,
and to a lesser degree even at Ohio
State. The implication is clear: Mr.
Canham's sports department is not run
for the students. His primary concern
is money, and that means pleasing the
t public which pays higher ticket prices.
Even the battle over the line versus
lottery method of distributing tickets
would be eliminated if the department
simply cared enough about students to
allocate a reasonable number of good
seats for them. After all, isn't the
University supposed to be for the
students?
If this kind of action is what it takes
to earn high rankings, then it is time to
restructure our priorities.
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editors-in-chief
By Michael Harris
HANCOCK, NH. - On a sunny morning in
early October, the driver of a Volkawagen bus
was startled by the appearance of a massive,
dark hulk in front of the vehicle as it rolled
north along Interstate 93. A resounding crash
broke the monotony of the highway drone, as
the bus rammed headlong into the flanks of a
young bull moose.
New Hampshire Fish and Game officials
were radioed to the scene, and media
representatives rushed to telephones and
typewriters to chronicle this emergenge of
the moose from the obscurity of 19th century
history smack into the middle of latter 20th
century life. More moose sightings in
Hancock, Canterbury and Merrimack have
confirmed the fact: The monarch of the
northern woods has returned home.
Of course, the moose of today will find the
traditional haunts quite changed since the
last of the solitary creatures virtually
disappeared from New Hampshire more than
75 years ago.
"Moose don't do very well in competition
with cars," -said Henry Laramie, Fish and
Game's superintendent of game
management. These citizens of the secluded
forest don't do well among the activities of
civilization, either.
IT IS PRIMARILY a change in mankind's
use of the land that is responsible for the
reappearance of the moose. A century of wide
spread farming and aggressive, clear-cut
logging of even the North's most inaccessible
forest lands destroyed the habitat that had
sheltered the creatures for centuries before
the arrival of the white man. Wanton killing
for skins and sport in the closing days of the
19th century finished the job.
Today the reversion of open farm land to
forest is nearly complete, with mature
woodlands now covering 86 per cent of New
Hampshire, once again providing food,
shelter and the necessary isolation from man.
In the dark spruce forests and grassy
swamps of northern New England, moose
were originally more numerous than deer.
They were ideally suited to the habitat and
survived quite well in harsh winter weather.
By developing effective defenses against
wolves, bears, and other predators, the moose
earned itselfa niche as one of the dominant
life -forms in the ecology of the forest
primeval.
THE MOOSE has demonstrated an
uncanny knack to survive. Its early ancestors
flourished as long as a million years ago, and
fossil remains indicate an extensive range
that stretched across Europe and North
America as far south as South Carolina,
through the hills on Pennsylvania to the
Illinois plains and westward to Oklahoma and
the Pacific Northwest.
As might be expected, the recent return of
the moose has generated pressure from
sportsmen to open the hunting season once
again. A bill to do just that was submitted to
the 1977 legislature, but met quick defeat in
the House Fish and Game Committee.
"The official position of the Fish and Game
Department was in support of the moose
hunting bill," said Laramie. Asked for his
personal opinion, Laramie revealed that he
"didn't think we would have a moose hunting
season."
"I saw what happened when we opened up
the season on the elk in New Hampshire,"
Laramie recalled. "The number killed during
the hunting season was not excessive, but
opening a hunting season on an animal seems
to open up some sort of psychological door in
people's minds, and then they start taking the
animals out of season."
The legislature authorized New
Hampshire's only elk hunt in 1941, and 46 of
r L O r
Nr
yaL.EL
the large deer-like creatures were shot during
the two-day season. Sightings were reported
annually during the years foollowing the hunt,
but by the early 1950s elk had disappeared
from New Hampshire's woodlands.
"We already had a problem with a lot of
moose being killed illegally," Laramie
continued."Ithink we could kill perhaps20
moose a year without hurting the present
population, but opening a season would cause
much more killing. I certainly don't think it
should be done for the money involved,
although I am sure the money is making it
very tempting to do just that."
REPORTS OF MOOSE sightings indicate a
surge in the population since 1969, although
Laramie suggests that the size of the herd has
been "creeping up steadily" since 1950, when
the department estimatedathe New
Hampshire moose population at between 25
and 30 - perilously close to extinction.
Laramie's best estimate of the current moose
population is 200 to 500.
This population boom is mirrored in other.
New England states, notably Maine, which
now estimates a moose herd numbering in the
thousands. There are also small but growing
herds in Washington, Oregon, North Dakota,
Minnesota, Idaho, Wisconsin, Michigan,
Pennsylvania and Vermont. All these states
have resisted pressures to open an
unrestricted hunting season on the animal,
and most states have no season at all.
"The current surge in the moose population
may be due to a number of factors," said
laramie. "A reduction in the deer herd caused
by the series of severe winters we've had in
the past few years have encouraged the reurn
of the moose, not because these two animals
are in direct competition, but because the
deer carries a parasitic 'brain worm' that is
not harmful to the deer but is fatal to- the
moose.rThe increase in beaver is also an
influence. Beaver ponds provide a good
habitat for the moose and encourage the
growth of aquatic vegetation that the moose
feeds on.
STANDING TALLER than a large horse
and weighing up to 1,400 pounds, the full-
grown bull moose is one of nature's majestic
splendors. Ghostly silent as he moves through
the still forest, the imposing beast can also be
reckless during mating season and downright
belligerent when attacked.
"The return of the moose presents us with a
unique opportunity," said Meade Cadot,
director of the harrisville Center for
Environmental Education in Hancock. "A
large native creature that had nearly
disappeared from New Hampshire's forests
has returned. Now it is up to us to see to it that
the moose receives the protection it needs."
The return of the moose is a fragile
phenomenon, and thecurrent rate of
population increase should not be expected to
last forever. As is the case with other large
species, innate mechanisms governing
reproduction will not allow a population
explosion greater than can be supported by
conditions in the local habitat. Second,
forward-looking management of the re-
emerging moose herd will be required to
protect this wildlife heritage of generations
yet unborn.
Michael Harris is a New England-based
freelancer specializing in environmental
coverage. This article was written for
Pacific News Service.
D>AVIDGOODMAN
GREGG KRUPA
Managing Editors
M. EILEEN DALEY
KEN PARSIGITAN
IAN OBERDORFFIR
Editorial Director
RENE BECKER
Magazine Editors
LIZ SLOWIK SUE WARNER
STAFF WRITERS: Michael Arkush, Carol Azzizian, Richard
Berke, Leonard Bernstein, Brian Blanchard, Ron Benshoter,
Mitch Cantor, Donna DeBrodt, Eleonora di liscia, Marianee
Egri, Dan Ezekiel, Josh Gamson, Ron Gifford, Sue Hollman,
Elisa Isaacson, Carol Koletsky, Paula Laxhinsky, Marty Levine,
Adrienne Lyons, Chester Moeski, Mark Parrent, Judy Rakow-
sky, Martha Retallick, Keith Richburg, Kevin Roseborough;
Julie Rovner, Beth Rosenberg, Dennis Sabo, Amy Saltzman,
Steve Shaer, John Sinkevics, R.J. Smith, Pauline Toole, Jon
Vogle, Jeffrey Wolff, Shelley Wolson, Howard WitI
Letters to the Daily
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To the Daily:
As a graduate student who has
been at the "U" for seven years
and as an avid basketball fan who
has followed Michigan b-ball sin-
ce the days of Pomey, Russell,
Darden, Tregoning, and Buntin I
would like to express my extreme
disappointment and utter disgust
at the ticket department's choice
of a lottery scheme for dispersing
b-ball tickets. A less. equitable
system could not have been
chosen.
A lottery system is very
inequitable because those studen-
ts who really care about basket-
ball, who participate in the
games, support the team through
thick and thin, and actually cheer
at the games are unable to do
anything about the seats they will
ontain. There is a difference bet-
ween those persons who are
really "into basketball" and
those who simply want to go to a
few games, if the team is doing
well, as anyone who went to last
year's games and saw all the"no-
shows" at the supposedly sold-out
games knows all too well. Though
om m yargue that there are no
Pricing could be used to differen-
tiate prime seats from other
seats by charging $3 per game for
the prime seats and $2 per game
otherwise. This would allow the
"die-hards" to differentiate
themselves from the casual ob-
servers. Such a pricing system
was indirectly used this year as
ticket prices were raised from $1
per game to $2 per game. The
result was that only 3700 ticket
applications had been sold as of
Sunday whereas 5300 were sold
last year. Obviously. some
students want to see b-ball more
than others. Priority
arrangements are designed to
ensure that students will
gradually receive better seats
and should be retained. Though
there are some problems with
"trafficking in senior I.D.s" it is
a problem without any easy
solutions under any distribution
system. Queuing systems should
be established or authorized by
the ticket department and run by
responsible individuals with
reasonable check-in requiremen-
ts and adeauate disclosure. Lines
superior to any "chance" system
where students who wish to ob-
tain better seats are unable to do
so. Messrs. Renfrew and Canham
should "get their act together",
the students deserve far better
than what they are being offered.
-Patrick J. Wilkie
Editor's note: A letter yesterday falsely accused the Daily;
below Managing Editor Ken Parsigian explains the
discrepancy.
Schlomo Mandes' letter yesterday stated that the quarrel over
basketball ticket policy last year "was intensified when the
Daily, after condemning the previous year's line assumed the
number one spot." This is completely false, and stems from a
case of confused identity between my brother, Jeff Parsigian,
and myself, Ken Parsigian. Last year, five days before tickets
were to go on sale, my brother called me and told me that he had
already started a line with his friends. I asked if there were any
other persons in line, and he said no. After all, he said, all.he'
cared about was getting the best seats. I thought, however, that
everyone should know there was a line started already, so I
telephoned Ticket Director Allan Renfrew and asked if he was
going to honor the line. When he said yes, I printed the
information in the Daily so every student would know about it,
and would have a chance to get into line. This was in accordance
with the Daily's editorial position which stated that one of the
main problems with the ticket distribution system was that no
one knew when the lines were starting.
Late that night, my brother telephoned me and asked if I could
help him out the next day by taking someone's spot in line. Since
I wasn't busy, I helped my brother out by waiting in line.
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