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Tag Archives: B.C.

Bow Valley wolf pack down to 2 after male killed by hunters in B.C.

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bow-valley-wolf-pack-male-killed-1.4071142

Wildlife specialist says he expects pack’s population near Banff will stabilize despite low numbers

CBC News Posted: Apr 14, 2017 10:40 AM MT Last Updated: Apr 14, 2017 10:40 AM MT

The Bow Valley wolf pack near the Banff townsite is down to two members after a two-year-old male was shot and killed by hunters in B.C. after leaving the park.

The Bow Valley wolf pack near the Banff townsite is down to two members after a two-year-old male was shot and killed by hunters in B.C. after leaving the park. (Parks Canada)

A wildlife specialist in Banff National Park has hopes the Bow Valley wolf pack will recover after one of its three members was shot and killed by a hunter in B.C. last month.

The two-year-old wolf, known as 1502, was equipped with a tracking collar when it left the park and headed west.

“It’s typical for a wolf around that age to go on a dispersal like that as they find a new territory for themselves and join another pack or form another pack on their own,” said Steve Michel, a Parks Canada human-wildlife conflict specialist.

Wolf 1502 travelled more than 500 linear kilometres until he reached the West Kootenay area where he was killed near Trout Lake, B.C., at the end of March.

There are now two wolves remaining in the Bow Valley pack — an alpha male and a two-year-old female, which would be the sibling to wolf 1502.

Last year, Parks Canada staff estimated the pack had at least nine wolves in the spring. A few months later, staff at the park were forced to put down an alpha female after it exhibited concerning behaviour.

Shortly after, four wolf pups were killed by trains in two separate incidents. Later in the summer, park staff shot a second wolf that had been acting boldly around people at campgrounds.

Wolf populations fluctuate

Michel said despite last year’s devastation of the pack, population numbers are constantly fluctuating and he expects the pack’s population will stabilize in some way in the future.

“Wolf populations are very dynamic,” he said. “The size of the pack is constantly changing, just as we talk about this wolf dispersing, there’s other wolves from other packs in other areas that are dispersing that might come and join in to the Bow Valley pack as well.”

Overall, Michel said, the wolf population in Banff National Park is healthy, but being so close to a busy developed area like the Banff townsite, the Bow Valley wolf pack is constantly under pressure.

“We’ve seen before, in this portion of the park and the Bow Valley, we’ve seen packs completely die out and then a short time later, new packs form and take over similar territorial boundaries. We’ve seen packs merge together, packs overtake other ones.”

“Wolf populations are very dynamic and they’re always in a state of flux.”

BC Liberals promise to eliminate grizzly trophy hunting in the Great Bear Rainforest

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By Jenny Uechi in News, Politics | April 11th 2017

In a stunning reversal of policy, the BC Liberals are promising to eliminate grizzly bear hunting in the province’s Great Bear Rainforest.

Premier Christy’s Clark’s Liberals made the promise as they unveiled a new platform for the May 9 provincial election that promised to protect healthy and sustainable wildlife populations.

“We must operate on the principle of conservation first in order to pass on B.C.’s natural splendour so future generations can enjoy it,” said the Liberal platform. “That’s why our wildlife management practices are determined by the best available science.”

The BC Liberals previously defended grizzly bear hunting in British Columbia, despite opinion polls showing nearly 90 per cent of B.C. residents opposed to the trophy hunting of grizzlies. But the new platform promised to phase it out.

“Today’s BC Liberals will work with the Coastal First Nations towards the elimination of the grizzly bear hunt in the Great Bear Rainforest, continuing with the science based approach to the bear hunt elsewhere in the province,” the platform said.

“We know that many First Nations have a deep connection to the land, and also use wildlife for food, social and ceremonial uses. Our hunting, trapping and angling regulations are designed to ensure species conservation and to maintain healthy wildlife populations for use.”

Green Party and NDP also opposed hunt

Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver proposed legislation, in March 2015, to stop the hunt.

The latest move by the Liberals also follows a similar commitment by the BC NDP which also pledged, last November, to end the controversial trophy hunt.

One of the provincial NDP candidates, Bryce Casavant, is a former conservation officer who was fired for refusing to kill two orphaned black bear cubs in 2015.

Chris Genovali, executive director of Raincoast Conservation Foundation, has actively campaigned against the trophy hunting of grizzly bears in B.C. over the years. He said the foundation welcomed seeing major political parties support calls to end the hunt.

“The evidence is overwhelming. Every argument that’s been put out there to justify the grizzly hunt has been blown out of the water, whether it’s economic, ecological or ethical,” Genovali said. “Studies have shown that bear viewing generates more revenue than bear hunting.

“I think finally the political parities recognized that [grizzly hunting] is not a winning party platform, at least with regard to the Great Bear Rainforest.”

Editor’s note: This article was updated at 8:50 p.m. PT with additional background information.

Correction 9:56 p.m.: An earlier version of this article stated that Bryce Casavant refused to kill two grizzly cubs. This has been corrected to black bear cubs.

Data reveals more than 300 B.C. grizzlies killed by hunters yearly

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/more-than-300-bc-grizzly-bears-killed-by-hunters-yearly-david-suzuki-data/article34550355/

by WENDY STUECK

VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Mar. 31, 201

Nearly 14,000 grizzly bears have been killed in B.C. since the government started tracking mortality records for the species in 1975, the vast majority by hunters, according to provincial data compiled by the David Suzuki Foundation.

Of those bears – an estimated 329 each year – 87 per cent have been killed by licensed hunters, with other kills attributed to causes including the shooting of problem bears by conservation officers, illegal poaching and collisions with cars and trains.

A total of 13,804 grizzly bears have been killed by humans from 1975 to 2016, the group says.

 The Suzuki foundation provided the data to The Globe and Mail ahead of the opening on Saturday of the province’s controversial trophy grizzly-bear hunt. The governing Liberal party has defended the hunt and resisted calls to shut it down. With the Opposition NDP opposed to the hunt, the issue will likely arise during the spring election campaign.

The figures, compiled from the B.C. Compulsory Inspection Database, show a relatively consistent number of grizzly bears killed each year over the past four decades, with the exception of a dip in 2001, when there was a moratorium on the grizzly-bear hunt.

(The database consists of information submitted by hunters through required inspections for certain species, including grizzly bears.)

The figures also indicate that, on average, 34 per cent of grizzly bears killed each year are female – a percentage that worries some conservationists and is one element in a public debate over whether the hunt should be banned.

“Despite being a large, dominant animal, grizzlies are among the most threatened large species on the continent,” Faisal Moola, director-general of the Suzuki foundation, said on Friday.

Because female grizzly bears reproduce later in life and have a small number of cubs that survive, the species is vulnerable to decline if too many female bears are taken out of the population, he said.

“The ability of a population to rebound, or bounce back, from a period of hunting, is wholly dependent on the success of those female bears to continue to reproduce and replenish the population,” Dr. Moola said.

The province estimates the grizzly population in B.C. at 15,000 – about one-quarter of the population in North America. Of 56 bear “population units” in B.C. – geographic areas based on habitat and natural boundaries – nine are classified as threatened.

But conservation groups say that figure overestimates the health of the grizzly population.

The Liberal government maintains that the grizzly-bear hunt is sustainable, based on sound science, and tightly regulated.

If hunters take more than 30 per cent of female bears, “hunting opportunities are reduced or that unit is closed to hunting,” the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations said on Friday in a statement.

There is significant opposition to the hunt, including from First Nations that see greater economic opportunity in bear-viewing.

There is also debate over whether sanctioned hunts could put further pressure on population units deemed to be threatened.

The province refused to provide spatial data on individual grizzly kills unless the Suzuki foundation agreed to sign a confidentiality agreement, which it declined to do, Dr. Moola said.

Without that information, the group was unable to determine whether grizzly bears are being killed in parks or protected areas or in local populations where over-hunting has occurred in the past, he said in an e-mail.

Kill locations of grizzly bears are “considered sensitive information and not released publicly,” the ministry said. “The province fully supports ensuring the long-term sustainability of Grizzly bear populations, and the protection of seasonally-critical habitats is a significant part of conservation efforts,” the ministry added.

Grizzly-bear hunting is not allowed in areas where conservation is a concern. Last September, the B.C. Auditor-General’s office included grizzly-bear management in its list of planned projects to determine “whether government is meeting its objective of ensuring healthy grizzly bear populations throughout B.C.”

Protesters gather at B.C. legislature, renewing calls to ban grizzly bear trophy hunt

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Protesters gather at B.C. legislature, renewing calls to ban grizzly bear trophy hunt

April 1st marks the first day of the grizzly bear hunting season in British
Columbia.

“It’s the first day of the spring grizzly bear hunt, when the bears are just
coming out of hibernation and all they care about is having enough to eat
whatever food they can,” says Val Murray of Justice for B.C. Grizzlies,”for
the next 8 to 10 weeks in the province of British Columbia, those bears can
be shot.”

About a hundred people gathered in front of the B.C. legislature renewing
calls to end to the grizzly trophy hunt.

“The grizzly bear is a species of special concern, and we don’t know how
many grizzly bears are in the province. The province says 15,000 but we
don’t actually know if that number is accurate,” says NDP candidate for Oak
Bay-Gordon Head, Bryce Casavant, ” we need to be banning the trophy haunt
because it is no longer morally or ethically acceptable in this province.”

The David Suzuki Foundation revealed data showing over 13,000 grizzlies have
been killed by humans from 1975 to 2016.

he most recent numbers showing that with about 36-hundred hunting trips made
in a season, the hunters bring in about 4-point-8 million dollars.

The Commercial Bear Viewing Association says it raises 13-million dollars a
year.

Many living in close proximity with the grizzlies, say their livelihood is
priceless.

Donna Johnson of the Wuikinuxv Nation says grizzlies used to roam often in
her village growing.

“They’re few and far between, we don’t see as many as we use to, they don’t
come through the village as much. To our nation they’re like ancestors,
they’re that important to us.”

In a statement, the province tells Chek News:

“The government believes that the bear viewing and bear hunting are not
mutually exclusive and can co-exist. both bring benefits to the province,”
says Steve Thomson, Minister of Forests, Lands, & Natural Resource
Operations.

Protesters want this grizzly hunting season, to be the last one in B.C’s
history.

<http://www.cheknews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/BEAR-TROPHY-HUNT-PROTEST

B.C. grizzly bears could be shipped to Washington State

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Kendra Mangione, Web Journalist / Digital Content Editor, CTV Vancouver

@kendramangione

Published Tuesday, March 14, 2017 7:08PM PDT 

Washington State is looking at ways to boost its grizzly population, including bringing in bears from north of the border.

A proposal from the National Parks Service suggests shipping in grizzlies from a nearby area with bruins to spare, like British Columbia or Montana.

If approved, some of the roughly 15,000 grizzly bears living in B.C. could be captured and sent south, to a part of the state that used to be flush with the species.

A proposal from the National Parks Service suggests importing grizzlies to boost a sparse population.

Ann Froschauer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says they estimate there are fewer than 10 grizzlies in the Northern Cascades ecosystem, an area in northern Washington east of the I-5 corridor. The bears chosen to head to the area would be selected for the sole purpose of repopulating.

“We’d be looking to have a self-sustaining population of bears that would then continue to grow that population over the years,” Froschauer said.

The proposal is currently open for public input, and Canadians are welcome to share their thoughts, by clicking “Comment Now” on the page they’ve set up for the project.

More than 100,000 people have weighed in on the debate so far, largely due to an online campaign started by a Seattle cartoonist. Matthew Inman, the man behind theoatmeal.com, used social media and his website to get signatures from supporters of the plan. On Twitter, he wrote that he’d spoken with the National Park Service Monday to get the deadline for feedback extended.

While some in the States are fully supportive of the idea, other advocates north of the border are not yet on board with the plan.

“We want to see grizzly bears thrive wherever they are,” said Rachel Forbes, executive director of the Grizzly Bear Foundation.

“But we think the B.C. government has a lot more questions to answer before we decide to export populations of grizzly bears. We need to do a better job of managing them here first.”

The foundation says there are several areas of B.C. where the species is threatened, and others where populations have disappeared entirely.

“Before we say yes to this, we need to take a better look at the cumulative impacts here in B.C.,” Forbes said.

The U.S. government expects to make a decision early next year. The B.C. Ministry of Environment says the province will work with U.S. officials at that time to determine its level of involvement.

With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Scott Hurst

National Park Service - potential release area

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-grizzly-bears-could-be-shipped-to-washington-state-to-breed-
1.3325340

Photo@ Jim Robertson

Justice for BC Grizzlies

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Help BC Grizzly Bears by contacting BC political candidates and ask for #TrophyFreeBC + #BanTrophyHunting.

Our Thunderclap campaign to Ban the Grizzly Hunt in British Columbia launched on March 10/17 with 304 supporters and a social reach of over 500, 000. That campaign is now closed but the pledge campaign and survey of political candidates are still active. Thank you to all who joined the Thunderclap campaign and helped to get this time-sensitive message out there.

NOW is the time to take this campaign to the next critical step. We ask all BC residents to take action by contacting political candidates in their riding, and elsewhere in BC, and asking them where they stand on ending the BC grizzly hunt.

TAKING ACTION IS EASY TO DO!

1. GO TO https://justiceforbcgrizzlies.com/2017-provincial-election-grizzly-survey-results/ and check your riding to see which candidates have responded to the survey that asked where they stand on the BC grizzly hunt. If a candidate in your riding has not responded to the survey, call and ask them to do so.

2. GO TO justiceforbcgrizzlies.com Call to Action, where you will find information, links and three sample letters that you can use verbatim, or adapt with your own words. These letters can be sent online or surface mail to candidates in your riding and to politicians currently in government. Addresses for key political leaders can be found at https://justiceforbcgrizzlies.com/pledge-for-grizzlies-campaign/ where you can also take the pledge for grizzlies.

UPCOMING EVENT:  Rally for BC Grizzlies,  April 1/17, 1-2:30 at the Legislature in Victoria.  April 1st marks the first day of the hunt in most regions of the province.  Join us to stand up for Grizzly Bears!

The fight is on over grizzly hunting in the Great Bear Rainforest

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http://wuwm.com/post/fight-over-grizzly-hunting-great-bear-rainforest#stream/0

By ANDREA CROSSAN • JAN 31, 2017 

The small outboard boat I’m in is floating along the estuary of the Nekite River.

It’s a cloudless morning and just beyond the bow there’s rustling of trees and the sound of branches snapping.

I’m holding my microphone as far out as I can — so that I can record the sound of a male grizzly, on the shore about 15 yards away.

My guide here is Tom Rivest. “That is the sound that is called either chuffing or huffing. It sounds a little bit like bellows expelling air,” says Rivest. “The bears do that when they’re stressed — or excited, or a little both — which they probably are.”

The reason this bear is excited is that it’s mating season and he’s following a female and her two cubs.

Related: The Great Bear Rainforest is a model for how to save trees

Rivest co-owns a floating lodge here and has been taking tourists to this spot for 15 years.

So he knows this bear. He calls it Bo Diddley.

“Bo and I go back 10 years,” says Rivest. “So he was just a little scrawny thing back then. And now he’s quite large — probably an 800-pound bear.”

Bears like Bo Diddley are a big draw for tourists paying top dollar to see them. But there’s another type of tourist looking for bears here. Before I came here, I called up another guide to see what draws his customers.

“They’re world class as far as size and weight — and skull measurement.”

Skull measurement is one of the criteria for guide outfitters like Peter Klaui.

He owns a hunting license for a huge swath of the Great Bear Rainforest and runs a guiding company.

Klaui’s current license allows the hunting of 23 bears over five years, with a maximum of 7 per year.

Hunters pay him upwards of $20,000 for a trip here. But the hunting culture here may be winding down.

Earlier this year, the British Columbia government officially endorsed the practice of conservation groups buying hunting licenses from guides like Peter Klaui.

“Previously we just went and did it,” says Chris Genovali, head of the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.

In cooperation with Coastal First Nations, an alliance of aboriginal groups, Genovali’s foundation helps raise the millions of dollars needed to buy the hunting license tenures. They already own rights to about a third of the Great Bear Rainforest.

Genovali is no fan of trophy hunting in general, but he says it’s particularly cruel to hunt grizzlies here because they’re out in the open, grazing in estuaries or following a salmon run.

“It’s like someone walking into your kitchen or your dining room as you’re eating your breakfast or dinner and shooting you,” says Genovali. “It’s obscene. It’s becoming viewed by an overwhelming majority of the public as a fringe behavior.”

Genovali points to a poll in which only 10 percent of those who responded supported trophy hunting.

But there’s sort of a wink and a nod in conservationists’ deal with the government. In order to buy the hunting licenses, his group has to use them.

“We’ve had to show what’s called commercial activity,” explains Genovali. Once a year, they take out tourists for a fake hunt.

“We take clients on hunts in our guide outfitting territories and we look for bears — the difference is we shoot them with cameras.”

The BC government has agreed to an outright end to commercial grizzly bear hunting in some native territory in the Great Bear.

So the pressure is clearly on hunting guides. But Klaui says he isn’t worried about his business.

“Nothing has changed since that announcement and I don’t expect it to change,” says Klaui. He says he’s still getting calls from hunters. But Klaui also says he’s planning to retire at some point soon and might sell his license.

And he might even sell it to a conservation or aboriginal group if they offered him the most money. “If they want to eliminate or slow down hunting of carnivores in the Great Bear Rainforest, they can do like anybody else and offer to buy out the business, just like on Wall Street.”

As for the grizzlies grazing on sedge grass on the Nekite River, they are safe from the crosshair of a rifle.

Raincoast Conservation Foundation owns the commercial hunting rights here. The area is also off limits to local resident hunters.

Rivest says that’s important because these bears have become used to humans.

“The biggest issue with viewing and hunting is that bears get used to being around people and they no longer have that innate fear so it is really not fair to hunt them.”

And that’s what the debate about hunting here really comes down to — fairness, and values.

The BC government estimates there are around 15,000 grizzlies in the province. And hunters kill between 250 and 300 grizzlies per year in BC.

So they’re not endangered. It’s more that the social clock seems to be running out on commercial trophy hunting.

For the grizzlies along the Nekite River, humans certainly don’t seem to be a threat.

If Bo Diddley was afraid of us he didn’t show it. He seemed more concerned with where that female grizzly was headed.

From PRI’s The World ©2016 PRI

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Too many grizzly bears seeking berries dying in British Columbia: study

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 http://www.chroniclejournal.com/news/national/too-many-grizzly-bears-seeking-berries-dying-in-british-columbia/article_3d4a7f91-3fe0-50cf-8c6d-22116a752d8c.html

Fruit, too many people bad pairing for grizzlies

  •  Wed Sep 28, 2016.

John Cotter The Canadian Press | 0 comments

EDMONTON – A study suggests hungry grizzly bears drawn to bountiful berry crops in southeastern British Columbia are dying in disturbing numbers.

The fruit the grizzlies want to eat is in the same Elk Valley area where lots of people live and work, so bears end up being hit by vehicles and trains or being killed by hunters and poachers.

Clayton Lamb, a University of Alberta researcher, said the combination of great habitat and human activity has captured the grizzlies in what amounts to an ecological trap.

“In the last eight years, we’ve lost 40 per cent of our grizzly bears in that area — that’s not normal,” said Lamb, whose findings are being published Tuesday in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

Years of data shows more bears keep moving from the rugged backcountry to the Elk Valley area to find a rich supply of huckleberries and buffalo berries.

A high death rate in turn prompts more migration because the reduced population makes the area more appealing to other bears, since there is less competition for berries and space.

Once tempted to the region, bears tend to stick around. They prey on livestock, eat apples from orchards or nose through garbage.

That in turn can lead to conflicts with people, including bear attacks.

“We have a number of attacks in this region annually,” Lamb said from Fernie, B.C. “We had more than one last year within the span of a couple of weeks.”

He estimates that over an eight-year period the population of grizzlies in the larger South Rockies research region declined to 163 from 271 — a loss of 108 bears.

The survival rate in the “ecological trap” is even lower.

The study notes that about 12,000 people live in the Elk Valley region year-round, but each summer there is a major influx of tourists. Four highways and one major rail line either run through or near the area.

Just over half the grizzly deaths are caused by collisions. About one-third are from hunting, which is legal in B.C., and the remainder are due to poaching and other causes.

Lamb said the provincial government can control how many bears are killed by hunters, but more research is needed on how to reduce collisions with vehicles and trains, and how to decrease conflicts with people.

Research shows the need to provide the grizzlies with a refuge from human development by maintaining critical habitat.

Gruesome photos of entangled whale show need for reporting, DFO says

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Rescuers say a humpback whale entangled off the coast of Bella Bella was one of the worst cases they’ve ever seen.

Gord Kurbis, Comox Valley Videographer

Tuesday, September 14, 2016 4:15PM PDT

Warning: Some of the images in this story are graphic.

Rescuers have come to the aid of yet another humpback whale entangled in debris left in B.C. water, and photos show it’s one of the most severe cases yet.

Photos taken by a wildlife tour guide show the humpback completely wrapped up in ropes and in need of desperate assistance.

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“This animal was definitely in major distress, and just with the ropes, the tight tension, that were wrapping around the animal and seeing the skin and the abrasions and the bleedings, it was awful to see,” said Paul Cottrell of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

“This animal definitely couldn’t have survived too long under that kind of tension.”

Experts say the whale may have already been entangled in debris when it got snagged on an anchor line at an empty Marine Harvest fish farm near Bella Bella.

“There was a rope through the animal’s mouth and wrapped around the head,” said Cottrell.

The whale was tangled up at the farm for hours when help finally arrived and freed it. Photos show multiple bloody abrasions on its body and a thick rope wrapped around its head.

entangled whale bella bella keyed version

Photos show the damage done to a humpback whale that became entangled in debris off the Bella Bella coast. Sept. 12, 2016. (Photo courtesy Philip Charles)

“This if the first time this has ever happened to us,” said Marine Harvest spokesman Ian Roberts. “So we’ll review the situation and see how our anchor lines may have contributed to this event, and if we need to make changes to our farms, we’ll make them across all our farms if that’s needed.”

Marine educators say it appears a staggering 47 per cent of humpbacks in B.C. waters have been entangled at one time or another.

They also say the two most important messages to get out after the most recent incident is making sure the public knows to report entanglements to the marine mammal hotline – and to not attempt a rescue themselves.

“If we get the call and we can get there, our success rate is huge,” said Cottrell. “It’s all about the 1-800 number, and not having people engage with the animal and trying to cut gear off, because that’s made situations worse in the past.”

The DFO believes the freed whale will stay in the general area for the foreseeable future and said staff will monitor the animal’s recovery and health over the next several weeks.

In June following another whale entanglement, Cottrell said he’s seen an increase in entanglements in recent months, but that could be because of increased reporting.

Anyone who sees an entangled marine mammal is asked to report it to the 24/7 hotline at 1-800-465-4336.

entangled whale bella bella keyed

An anchor line became wrapped around the head of a humpback whale off the Bella Bella coast. Sept. 12, 2016. (Photo courtesy Philip Charles)

http://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/gruesome-photos-of-entangled-whale-show-need-for-reporting-dfo-says-1.3070951#_gus&_gucid=&_gup=twitter&_gsc=UcDHBUU