Tag Archives: bear hunt

British Columbia’s controversial spring grizzly bear hunt now open

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Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

by Dene Moore Apr. 02 2014

British Columbia’s controversial spring grizzly bear hunt opened Tuesday, with one of the highest number of hunting authorizations issued in decades.

Based on government counts that showed stabilization of specific grizzly populations previously closed due to overhunting, the government reopened several areas to hunting this year. An estimated 1,800 authorizations will be issued, up from about 1,700 last year but lower than the 1,980 issued in 2011.

“I think we have the best idea [of the population] of any of the jurisdictions that hunt bears right now,” said Garth Mowat, a provincial government grizzly bear biologist in the Kootenay region.

“We have spent a lot of resources improving our understanding of the number of bears in British Columbia and I’m quite comfortable that it’s good enough to allow us to conservatively manage the hunt.”

The spring grizzly hunt runs from April 1 to the end of May. The fall hunt begins Oct. 1 and continues into mid-November.

Though 1,800 hunting authorizations will be issued, so far this year 1,459 licences have been issued via a lottery system. In 2011, 1,733 licences were issued of the 1,980 authorizations.

On average about 300 grizzlies are killed annually. The most recent year for which information is publicly available is 2009, when between 350 and 400 bears were shot.

Provincial biologists estimate there are approximately 15,000 grizzly bears in the province, which is home to about a quarter of the remaining North American population. Only Alaska has more grizzlies.

Biologist Paul Paquet of the Raincoast Foundation said it’s extremely difficult to get a proper count of grizzly bears and there could be far fewer – too few to risk a trophy hunt.

“The real numbers could be somewhere as low as 6,000 or as high as 18,000. We just don’t know,” Paquet said.

But the bigger question is the moral one, he said.

“Is this ethical, to be hunting bears? That’s really what’s at issue,” Paquet said. “This is a trophy hunt, as opposed to a hunt for food.”

Mowat agrees that the real issue is a question of moral support for the hunt.

“The debate about whether an individual morally supports a bear hunt and the debate about the sustainability of the hunt get woven together,” he said.

He does not believe there are conservation concerns.

In fact, he said, after 30 years of provincial management grizzlies are repopulating areas where they had been wiped out. Sows with cubs have been spotted moving west from the Kootenay mountains, into the Okanagan and Similkameen regions.

Conservation has been a concern.

They are largely extinct south of the Canada-U.S. border. The Alberta government suspended its grizzly hunt in 2006 and declared the bears a threatened species in 2010.

But in Alaska, there are 30,000 brown and grizzly bears, which are classed as the same species. The state fish and game department said about 1,900 were harvested in 2007.

Kyle Artelle, a biologist at Simon Fraser University and Raincoast, said the foundation’s own study found the provincial government quotas are not conservative and overkills are common.

“There’s a huge amount of uncertainty,” Artelle said.

Nine coastal First Nations have declared bans on bear hunting in their traditional territories. The Wuikinuxv, Heiltsuk, Kitasoo/Xai’xais, Nuxalk, Gitga’at, Metlakatla, Old Massett, Skidegate, and the Council of the Haida Nation say hunting is not allowed in the areas that largely cover the Great Bear Rainforest, though the ban is not recognized by the province.

In 2005, Raincoast began buying out commercial bear hunting licences in B.C. The group now owns the guide outfitting rights to more than 28,000 square kilometres of land in the Great Bear Rainforest on the north-central coast.

While the white spirit bears that call the region home cannot be hunted, the black bears that carry the recessive gene that produces them can be, said Chris Genovali, executive director.

The hunt is not necessary to manage the population, he said, and a recent study from Stanford University found that bear viewing contributes 10 times as much revenue and employment as hunting.

“The ethical argument is clear: killing for sport and amusement is unacceptable and, a lot of people would say, just outright immoral,” Genovali said.

Grizzly bear kill quota increases in Canada

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http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/Grizzly-kill-014.html#cr

27/03/2014

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

March 2014: As British Columbia prepares for its annual spring grizzly bear hunting season, researchers are protesting that the hunting quotas put in place by the province are too high.

The British Columbia Government has cited that some sub-populations of bears have recovered, and therefore has opened up areas that have been closed to hunting, increasing the grizzly bear kill quota from 1,700 to 1,800. This is based on estimations by the Government of a population of around 13,000 to 14,000 grizzlies.

However, biologist at the Raincoast Conservation Foundation and the University of Victoria Paul Paquet argues that the data that has informed these estimates is inaccurate, as the methods used to collect it are outdated. Bear numbers are calculated by various techniques such as aerial surveys and traps that snag hairs of passing bears. “In many cases [the population estimate] will be based on assumptions that are maybe 10 years old,” explains Paquet, “None of this is easy, obviously. But we need to take account of the uncertainties.” Due to the way in which the data is collected, Paquet believes that the bear population could be as low as 8,000, or higher than 15,000.

Based on their findings the British Columbia Government has set a ‘maximum allowable mortality rate’ of 6 per cent of the grizzly population per year. However this mortality rate, put forward researchers, doesn’t take into account deaths by unnatural causes, such as road accidents and hunting, meaning that more bears die than the 6 per cent quoted by the Government, leading to ‘overkills’. In order to reduce the risk of overkills to a safe level, the researchers conclude that there needs to be an 81 per cent reduction of the target. “Because these are long-lived, slow-reproducing populations, they don’t necessarily recover from overkill,” Paquet explains.

Paquet along with Kyle Artelle – a conservation ecologist at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada – co-authored a letter sent to Science last week. A total of four leading scientific researchers, including Artelle and Paquet, have signed a letter questioning the province’s estimates and expanded killing zones. The concerned researchers also spoke to the journal Nature in an attempt to open the quota to debate and raise awareness of the issue.

Although the grizzly bear is listed as ‘threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act in the United States, it is not listed under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, and is not protected by the Canadian Government. British Columbia boasts a quarter of the population of all North American grizzlies, however the bear’s habitat in certain areas may be under threat. The province does have protected areas, including the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary, but this area is under pressure from firms exploring the possibility of implementing a pipeline here. In the Purcell Mountains, there are plans to build a giant ski resort near the Jumbo Pass, which would threaten the north-south migration of the grizzlies.

Read our Field guide to grizzlies here, which has details on their habitat, threats, diet, and where to see them in the wild.

Feds Move to Strip Endangered Species Protections From Yellowstone Grizzlies in 2014

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March 27, 2014 by Louisa Willcox,

LIVINGSTON, Mt.— The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans on Wednesday to strip Endangered Species Act protections from Yellowstone’s iconic grizzly bears later this year. The agency will release a proposed rule removing federal protections for the bears by the end of this year, and following a public-comment period will make a final decision, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the Service. The move, announced at a meeting of grizzly bear managers in Jackson, Wyo., responds to a major push by Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to take over management of bears and enact sport hunts, much as they have with wolves.

“The science is clear — it’s simply way too soon to pull the plug on grizzly bear recovery,” said Louisa Willcox, a longtime advocate for grizzly bears and Northern Rockies representative of the Center for Biological Diversity. “With the lowest reproductive rate of any North American mammal, vanishing food sources and increased human-caused mortality, Yellowstone’s bears can’t withstand hunts led by states that are openly hostile to our few remaining large carnivores.”

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

The proposal comes at a time when key grizzly bear food sources in the heart of the Yellowstone ecosystem have been collapsing and grizzly mortality rates have been increasing. The dramatic decline of whitebark pine and Yellowstone cutthroat trout has prompted bears to eat more meat, such as big game gut piles and livestock, resulting in increases rates of conflict with humans and grizzly bear mortality. Drought and climate change will exacerbate these problems.

A 2009 interagency report recommended more than 70 ways to reduce conflicts, including requiring hunters to carry bear pepper spray, which is proven to be much more effective than a gun in repelling a charging bear. Other recommendations included improved grazing practices, rapid removal of hunted big game from the field and increased law enforcement.

“Unfortunately the government did not incorporate these recommendations in their policies and practices,” said Willcox. “Instead of delisting grizzlies, the government should take these practical steps to reduce conflicts and the high levels of grizzly bear mortality since 2007. It’s clear that current efforts to educate the public on how to avoid conflicts are not working.”

Yellowstone’s bears have long been isolated from other bear populations, forcing the government to keep them on permanent life support by trucking bears in to avoid inbreeding. This highlights the fact that, as a result of excessive killing and habitat destruction, grizzly bears occupy only about 1 percent of their former range in the lower 48 states. And in five of the seven remaining grizzly bear recovery zones, bears have either been exterminated or are perilously close to extinction.

“Without the protection of the Endangered Species Act, grizzly bears would not likely have survived in Yellowstone,” said Willcox, “and with the unraveling of their ecosystem, there’s no doubt they still need the federal safety net in the years to come.”

A new federal study suggests the grizzly population may have been declining by an average of 4 percent per year since 2008. A second independent analysis found that the agency’s population estimate for bears may be based on flawed assumptions that inflated total population numbers.

“The feds are bending to political pressure from the states rather than providing grizzly bears the additional breathing room they need to compensate for climate change and the loss of key foods,” said Willcox. “Now is not the time for the feds to walk away from Yellowstone grizzly bears and leave their fate up to three states that want to hunt them instead of save them from extinction.”

Grizzly bears are especially important as a measure of the health of the lands where they live. Where grizzly bears are healthy, so are an array of other species, from bighorn sheep to raptors.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 675,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2014/grizzly-bear-03-27-2014.html

Montana black bear hunting season opens April 15

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http://www.ktvq.com/news/montana-black-bear-hunting-season-opens-april-15/

HELENA – Montana’s spring black bear hunting season opens April 15.

Hunters can buy black bear hunting licenses online at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks license providers, or print a paper license application and mail it in to FWP. Licenses issued through the mail may take two weeks to process.

Spring black bear hunters should purchase their license by April 14. Black bear hunting licenses purchased after April 14 may not be used until 24 hours after purchase. Black bear hunters are limited to one black bear license a year.

All black bear hunters must successfully complete FWP’s bear identification test before purchasing a black bear license. Take the bear identification test online at the agency’s website.

Complete the training and test, and then present the printed on-line certificate to purchase a license. The training and test can also be obtained on paper, with a mail-in answer card, at FWP regional offices.

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Mendocino County supervisors back hunting with hounds

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http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20140311/articles/140319928

By GLENDA ANDERSON

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

March 11, 2014

Mendocino County supervisors on Tuesday unanimously voted to support a bill that would overturn a year-old state ban on hunting bears and bobcats with hounds.

Assembly Bill 2205 would allow individual counties to decide whether to ban the use of hunting dogs to chase down and kill those animals.

“I think you guys should have the authority,” not somebody from Los Angeles or San Francisco, said Daniel Davis, a local member of California Houndsmen for Conservation, the bill’s sponsor.

The bill was introduced late last month by Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, a Republican candidate for governor and gun-rights advocate. Supervisor John Pinches asked that a letter of support for the bill be placed on the board’s agenda.

“This is an issue where we can basically take control,” he said Tuesday.

California’s ban on hounds for sports hunting has been in effect since January 2013. It continues to allow the use of hounds to hunt errant bears that cause property damage.

The ban was sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States.

No one at Tuesday’s meeting spoke in opposition to the newly proposed bill but national Humane Society officials said they are dismayed by the attempt to revive hound hunts. They called it “unsporting, cruel and unnecessary.”

Four Mendocino County residents, including Davis, his mother and father, and Steve Johnson spoke in favor of overturning the ban.

Johnson, a winemaker, said he moved to a rural area because “I want to have my dogs, I want to hunt bears,” he said. “It’s what I like to do.”

“Me and my dad, this is our passion,” Davis said.

Supervisor Carre Brown said allowing houndsmen to hunt bears reduces the number of bears that get into trouble and must be killed by federal trappers.

“Management of marauding wildlife I think is very important,” she said.

Pinches said hound hunting also draws tourism dollars.

“You’ve got to give people things to do,” he said.

The other three supervisors did not comment.

You can reach Staff Writer Glenda Anderson at 462-6473 or glenda.anderson@pressdemocrat.com

The bear facts; What’s a bunch of starving cubs when there are votes to be had?

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Bear

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/content/news/local/2014/02/22/bear-facts-what%E2%80%99s-bunch-starving-cubs-when-there-are-votes-be-had

Saturday, February 22, 2014 – 08:00
in Columns

Commentary
By Barry Kent MacKay
Re Bear Hunt Needs An Economic Angle — editorial, Feb. 11:
Because Kathleen Wynne was a bit of an outsider — Ontario’s first female and openly gay premier — I had hoped that transparency and citizen democracy would benefit, and policy would derive from logic and compassion. I was wrong.
Prior to 1999, in addition to a fall hunt, it was legal in Ontario to hunt black bears in the spring. Bait, often sweet pastry and fats, would be placed in front of blinds or tree stands — and the bears, ravenous from months in their dens without food, would approach. They were easy targets. Although many local hunters opposed the practice, they usually remained silent because it did bring money into the more remote, northern areas.
Hunters were only supposed to shoot males, but too often they shot females.
The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) estimated, from the number of females shot, that more than 270 cubs were orphaned each spring. Cubs are dependent on their mothers; so, when orphaned, they tend to die from predation or slowly starve to death. The few who survived were brought to wildlife rehabbers — but most simply died, lost in the bush.
Concerned citizens were able to convince the Ontario government to end the spring hunt. But, the fall hunt was extended, and the overall number of bears killed by hunters was nearly the same as before.
The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH) was outraged, and started a massive campaign of bear reporting. In 2003, a Nuisance Bear Review Committee recommended that the MNR take a lead role in responding to “nuisance” bear reports, including threats to human safety. Thus, the MNR’s Bear Wise program was born.
Although the program was successful, OFAH continues to claim it was not. And while there was, on average, no increase in conflicts between humans and bears, attacks on humans by bears, or the size of the bear population, OFAH and others somehow argued that all three increased. The campaign also pushed a very emotive button among people in Northern and central Ontario, suggesting that the government was more responsive to the concerns of the larger population living in the more urbanized south (where bears are rare or absent, but votes are numerous).
In 2008, then-Minister of Natural Resources, Donna Cansfield, wisely ordered an assessment of Bear Wise. Published in January 2009, the assessment presented dozens of suggestions on how it could improve. The next year, then Premier McGuinty removed Cansfield as the minister.
In May 2012, McGuinty quietly, and without consultation, conducted a massive scale-back of the Bear Wise program. Then, in October, he abruptly quit, handing leadership of the party, thus the province, to Kathleen Wynne.
And what did she do? We were promised a better, more open, and transparent government. But instead, the premier began the onerous task of dismantling many of Ontario’s environmental protection laws including the Endangered Species Act, the Planning Act, the Bear Wise Program and re-introducing the spring bear hunt.
Apart from the sad fact that people seem to believe there are more bears and more conflicts (neither contentions supported by the MNR’s own research), there is simply no way that shooting bears attracted to baits in the bush will mean that the same bear that might concern humans later on is the one shot. Shooting, itself, creates the risk of wounding bears, who can become aggressive. Bears tend to avoid humans, and the moms will not attack if their cubs are approached. But, availability of human food conditions bears to search for such foods — ironically exacerbating the problems that concern people.
Now, in the winter, female black bears are in their dens. They are not truly hibernating, but their metabolism has slowed, and they will soon give birth to tiny cubs. Smelling bait, the females will move in, but will tell their cubs to hide. If a mother bear is lucky, she’ll be recognized as a female, and spared; but she may well be shot, and then her cubs are doomed.
And why? Kathleen Wynne may think that, by making it a “test” and restricting the spring hunt to several communities, she will not arouse too much criticism from compassionate voters (while placating those northerners angry at cancellation of the spring hunt back in 1999). What are a few hundred starving baby cubs when there are votes to be had?

Barry Kent MacKay is a founding director of Animal Alliance of Canada and Canadian senior program associate with Born Free U.S.A., a non-profit animal advocacy based in Washington, D.C.

Petition: Stop the legal slaughter of Polar Bears by trophy hunters

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https://www.change.org/petitions/the-canadian-government-stop-the-legal-slaughter-of-polar-bears-by-trophy-hunters

Animal First! (www.animalfirst.org)

Petition by

Animal First! (www.animalfirst.org)

Polar Bears are some of the most majestic and beautiful animals in the world. The global population estimate is between 20 000 and 22 000. This classifies the Polar Bear as ‘threatened.’ Polar Bears are threatened by pollution High levels of chemicals and PCBs. Another threat is global warming. Without ice Polar Bears are unable to reach their prey.

But the most immediate threat is hunting. Over 1000 polar bears are hunted annually! This prevents the Polar Bear population from increasing to a healthier number. Canada is the only nation in the world that allows Polar Bear hunting by non-natives and non-citizens. (Polar Bears also live in Alaska, Russia, Greenland, & Norway) Canada sells polar bear hunting licenses to trophy hunters. The main problem with this is that 60% of Polar Bears reside in Canada.

The Canadian government are paying hunters for Polar Bear hides! The government pre-pays hunters for the hides of bears shot in this subsistence hunt, and then sells the hides at auction for up to $11,000 (which also goes to the hunter), it blurs the line between a subsistence hunt and a commercial hunt.

Polar Bears are protected under national law and international treaty, so Canada’s Polar Bears can only be harvested by Inuit hunters for subsistence, OR by trophy hunters guided by Inuit.

The major threat for Polar Bears in Canada is the commercial hunt. Canada is the ONLY nation in the world that allows Polar Bear hunting by non-natives and non-citizens trophy hunters. Why? The answer is easy: MONEY! Pure greed for profit! Canada charges 750 Canadian dollars per Bear!

Allowing hunting by non-natives and non-citizens and selling hunting licenses to trophy hunters creates a bloody business where radical hunters sell hunting tours to Canada and kill Polar Bears. The hunt of one male Polar Bear is offered for 35.000 $ and as we know there are enough rich people who book these tours to get their trophy! There is also an increase in polar bear skin sales!

By booking one of these horrifying tours, the trophy hunters are allowed to go to 5 or 6 day hunting trips in which they chase polar bears with several dogs and after a long chase, when the Polar Bear is exhausted from running, he stops to finally try to make the dogs that are surrounding him go away, at which point the hunter gets closer and shoots several arrows (!!!) until he is finally dead. This means pure torture for the Polar Bear. Cruelty on animals can not be worse than this.

Tell the Canadian government to stop the legal slaughter of one of the highest endangered species in the world. We are horrified and shocked that you sell the life of one of the most majestic and beautiful animals in the world to hunting tour operators like:

http://polarbearhunting.net/ or http://52safari.com/

The irresponsible killing of this threatened species for pure trophy hunting as well as commercial trade in polar bear products must be stopped — now! Before it’s too late!

We need a lot of signatures to put pressure on the Canadian Government! So please share this petition to as many people as possible.

To:
Environment Canada
THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT
Ministry of Agriculture
Environment Canada Inquiry Centre
Environment Canada National Office
Species at Risk Public Registry
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Minister of the Environment, Peter Kent
Canadian Wildlife Service Environment Canada

Dear [Decision Maker],

Dear Stephen Harper,

I have learned that Canada is the only nation in the world that still allows Polar Bears to be killed by trophy hunters and for the commercial trade in their skins. Canada sells Polar Bear hunting licenses to non-natives and non-citizens trophy hunters. That creates a bloody business where radical hunters sell hunting tours to Canada and kill Polar…

Read More and sign the petition: https://www.change.org/petitions/the-canadian-government-stop-the-legal-slaughter-of-polar-bears-by-trophy-hunters

The economics and ethics of trophy hunting

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BY JUDITH LAVOIE, MARCH 2014, FOCUS ONLINE
Studies call into question BC Liberals’ plans to expand bear hunting.
The magic of watching black bears overturning rocks and scooping up crabs on a Tofino beach, the once-in-a-lifetime excitement of seeing a Spirit Bear near Klemtu or witnessing the awe-inspiring power of grizzlies feeding on salmon in the Great Bear Rainforest are vignettes of BC that both tourists and residents carry close to their hearts.
So it is not surprising that a study by the Center for Responsible Travel at Stanford University in Washington concludes that live bears are worth more in cold, hard cash than dead bears. Not surprising, that is, to anyone except BC’s provincial government.
Instead of boosting the profitable business of bear viewing, the government is looking at extending the length of the spring black bear hunt and is re-opening the grizzly hunt in three areas of the Kootenays and one in the Cariboo—all formerly closed because of over-hunting.
Another indication of where provincial sympathies lie came during the first week of the spring sitting of the Legislature, when government introduced changes to the Wildlife Act—changes that will allow corporations, not just individuals, to hold guide outfitting areas, making it easier for a group of people to jointly purchase territories and reducing liability for individual owners. Assistant guides will no longer have to be licensed, allowing guide outfitters more flexibility during peak periods, something the industry says will reduce red tape.
Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Minister Steve Thomson said in the Legislature, “Proposed amendments to the Wildlife Act will help provide the guide outfitting industry, an industry that generates $116 million in economic activity each year, with additional business certainty.”
What he didn’t note is that bear viewing is far more lucrative for BC. In 2012, the Center for Responsible Travel found that bear viewing in the Great Bear Rainforest generated 12 times more in visitor spending than bear hunting and 11 times more in direct revenue for the BC government than bear hunting by guide outfitters—$7.3 million for bear viewing and $660,500 for non-resident and resident hunting combined. As for jobs, bear-viewing companies in the Great Bear are estimated to seasonally employ 510 people while guide outfitters generate only 11 jobs.
Despite such statistics and a growing antipathy to allowing well-heeled hunters to slaughter top predators for the sake of a rug on the floor or head on the wall (a 2013 poll found 88 per cent of BC residents opposed trophy hunting, up from 73 per cent in 2008), the government seems determined to expand the hunt.
Russ Markel of Outer Shores Expeditions, a company that takes tourists to wild areas of BC’s coast on a wooden schooner, feels trophy hunting adversely affects bear tourism, so expanding hunting could adversely affect his—and government—revenues. Markel can’t keep up with the demand for trips now, but an incident near Bella Coola last May left tourists shaken. “It was a horrible situation. People used the area for bear viewing and so the bears got used to it and then some random guy with a rifle turned up and a bear was killed,” he said.
The Guide Outfitters Association of BC, however, states: “Guide outfitting and wildlife viewing have co-existed for two decades and can continue to do so…It is important we separate the emotion from the science.”
But the science is not settled and there is long-standing controversy over the accuracy of population estimates and veracity of kill numbers.
Grizzly bears are listed federally as a species of special concern. Yet in BC, between 2001 and 2011, out of an estimated population of 15,000 bears, more than 3500 animals were killed, including 1200 females, according to a Raincoast Conservation Foundation study. More than 2800 of those animals, including 900 females, were killed by trophy hunters. Others were killed by poachers, accidents or conservation officers.
A Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations spokesman said in an email that the decision to re-open hunts is based on the best available science and is focused on areas where increasing grizzly populations can sustain a conservative hunt. A recent peer-reviewed study, co-authored by two provincial wildlife biologists, re-affirmed that grizzly populations are being sustainably managed.
But Raincoast Conservation senior scientist Paul Paquet scoffs at such claims. “Regional kill rates for sub-populations that are being hunted are much higher and not sustainable,” said Paquet, who co-authored a paper showing that, over the last decade, kills frequently exceeded targets.
As for black bears, the province estimates there are 120,000 to 160,000 black bears in BC and the harvest in 2012 was 3876—a number based on a sample survey of hunters—which is well below the sustainability level, said the ministry spokesman.
Raincoast Conservation executive director Chris Genovali questions the numbers and said kill numbers could be much higher. “They shouldn’t be considering extending the season when they have no reliable or accurate estimate of the number of black bears in BC. That’s disturbing,” he said.
NDP environment critic Spencer Chandra Herbert is also uncomfortable with government numbers. “Government does not have the evidence to back up what it’s doing because it has cut about 25 percent of the folks who would be out counting bears, looking at habitat issues, and enforcing poaching laws,” he said. But Chandra Herbert stopped short of committing the NDP to ending the trophy hunt. “We would actually do the science,” he said.
Growing awareness of the trophy hunt is fuelled by media pictures of slain bears and anyone picking up a hunting magazine is bombarded by images of jubilant hunters trying to make the animal they have just blown out of existence appear lifelike.
Barb Murray of Bears Matter, a group spearheading a petition asking the province to end the hunt, said, “We have wealthy people from the US and China coming to BC to kill our biggest and best.”
As pressure mounts for a close look at the ethics and rationale of trophy hunting, many question government’s insistence on continuing and expanding the hunt. Is it a leftover from the Liberal’s 2001 decision to immediately scrap an NDP-imposed moratorium on grizzly hunting or pressure from interest groups?
“Given widespread public disapproval for this ethically and culturally unacceptable trophy hunt, current provincial management of grizzlies seems to be driven more by bad political science than good biological science,” said Genovali.
Change may lie in the hands of First Nations. In 2012, Coastal First Nations banned trophy hunting in the territories of nine member nations—an area covering most of the Great Bear Rainforest—but the province continues to claim jurisdiction.
Heiltsuk tribal councillor Jess Housty hopes the recent economic study will bring change. “Last fall we learned the science used to justify the bear hunt is deeply flawed. Now we see the economics are completely backwards,” she said.
Coastal First Nations are trying to educate hunters, including approaching them in the field. “If the Coastal First Nations’ Bears Forever campaign has taught trophy hunters anything, I hope it’s that 9 out of 10 British Columbians support the Nations on the front line and that their unethical and unsustainable practice of killing bears for sport will no longer happen in the shadows,” Housty said.
The First Nations campaign complements Raincoast Conservation’s effort to buy up guide-outfitting licences, which, so far, has eliminated trophy hunting in about 30,000 square kilometres of the BC coast.
Another tactic is pressure on other countries. In 2004, after intense lobbying from NGOs, the European Union banned importation of grizzly bear parts and the ban stands today, despite challenges by the federal and provincial governments.
Meanwhile, Barb Murray of Bears Matter is pinning her hopes on local pressure. “The senseless killing of grizzly bears is morally indefensible and has no place in modern wildlife management practices and policies. Killing these magnificent creatures for sport and bragging rights does not, in any way, contribute to the conservation of the species or increased safety for humans,” says the petition going to Premier Christy Clark.
http://www.focusonline.ca/?q=node/691

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo Copyright Jim Robertson

Stop Ontario’s Spring Bear Hunt

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Stop Ontario’s Spring Bear Hunt – Action Needed!
URGENT!  Please send Sign-On letter!
Orphaned bear cub
Take action now!

Dear Friends of Wildlife

Premier Kathleen Wynne’s decision to allow a Spring Bear Hunt in Ontario will result in the death of hundreds of small bear cubs just like this one.

Attracting hungry adult bears with food bait when they are coming out of a long hibernation and easily shot by a hunter hiding in a nearby tree blind is a cowardly act made worse by the small dependent cubs that are left to die a slow death of starvation.  Sometimes hounds are used to track and tree bears for hunters to shoot. Wounded bears fall to the ground where the hounds attack them. Hounds may also attack cubs that are stranded on the ground without their mothers.

You and I can make a difference in stopping this morally-indefensible hunt. If you live in Ontario:    

  • Add your name to the Sign-On letter. Even if you have signed other petitions or sent a letter, please send this one as it will go to all Ontario MPP’s, sending a strong message that there is province-wide opposition to a Spring Bear Hunt.
  • Make the letter your own by changing the subject line, first paragraph or adjusting the order of others.
  • Second, send a response to the Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) consultation. The comment can be as brief as saying you are ‘strongly opposed on moral grounds to hunting bears in the spring when they are caring for very young dependent cubs’ or you can add a different point or two taken from the Sign-On letter. Click here to view the EBR posting or go directly to the comment page.

Please forward this to family and friends who share your love of wildlife and use social media to get the word out, particularly among young people, because we know they care.

Ontario Wildlife Coalition

Conservationists worried about impending bear hunt

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VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail, Sunday, Feb. 23 2014, 10:20 PM EST

The way professional wildlife photographer John Marriott sees it, the British Columbia government has just hung a target on Big Momma, a grizzly bear so huge – and so photogenic – that he calls her “a photo tour superstar.”

The female grizzly, who has silver-tipped dark brown fur and a perpetual pout that almost got her named Sad Face, lives in one of four wildlife management units the B.C.

Photo of bears in the wild Copyright Jim Robertson

Photo of bears in the wild Copyright Jim Robertson

government is planning to reopen to bear hunting this year. Mr. Marriott fears the big bear – a top attraction for the photography safaris he leads in the Chilcotin Mountains in the Cariboo – will be tracked down by a trophy hunter once the area is reopened.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/grizzly-bear-kill-limits-being-broken-across-bc-study-says/article15301716/

Grizzly bear kill limits being broken across B.C., study says

MARK HUME

VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Nov. 06 2013

The B.C. government has long justified its controversial grizzly bear hunt by saying it’s based on sound science.

But new research by a team of biologists from three universities has found the kill limits are being exceeded in many areas of B.C. – up to 70 per cent of the time – because of unpredictable factors, such as bears getting killed in collisions with vehicles, or being shot by ranchers who don’t report the incidents.

“The bottom line is human-caused mortality from all sources, 85 per cent of which is hunting, is consistently over target. These overkills are frequent and they are geographically widespread,” said Chris Darimont, a conservation scientist at the University of Victoria, one of several authors on the study.

He said by allowing too many bears to be killed, the government is “playing Russian roulette” with B.C.’s vulnerable grizzly bears, because the population in some regions could easily get knocked down to a level from which it couldn’t recover.

“If I was managing bears I wouldn’t manage them this way if I wanted to have them here in the future,” said Dr. Darimont, who called for a more precautionary approach.

The B.C. government’s support for a trophy grizzly bear hunt has been under attack from environmental groups, and in 2004 the European Union banned the import of grizzly bear trophies from B.C., saying the hunt was not environmentally sound.

But the government has worked with an independent panel of grizzly bear scientists to set harvest limits intended to ensure the sustainability of bear populations. Under the strategy, the province is divided into more than 50 sub-zones, or grizzly bear population units, where the harvest levels vary, depending on the number of bears in the area, the estimated productivity of the population and the known number of bear mortalities.

“It’s very complex but we noted they didn’t incorporate all the dimensions of uncertainty in setting those limits,” Dr. Darimont said.

“You need to know a few things if you want to allocate how many bears will be killed,” he said. “You need to know how many bears there are … and for most of the province there are no on-the-ground estimates … you also need to know … how fast do bear populations grow and therefore how much can we skim off the top?”

To further complicate the picture, he said, the government needs to know the level of unreported mortalities, where bears are shot by people who don’t report the kills.

“Those are the three pieces of information the ministry needs to calculate the [harvest] limits,” Dr. Darimont said. “But any one of those things has tremendous uncertainty around them. How many bears are there? Who knows? How fast can they reproduce? Who knows? What’s the true level of unreported mortality? Who knows?”

By studying all the grizzly bear data available over about an eight-year period, the researchers from UVic, Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia developed simulations based on a range of population and mortality estimates. Using the provincial estimates, they found overkills in 19 per cent of the population units. But that number climbed when they factored in the range of uncertainty.

“We did the audit again and found that not in 19 per cent of cases, but closer to 70 per cent of cases, there were likely overkills,” Dr. Darimont said.

Kyle Artelle, a PhD student at SFU and lead author on the paper, said if the government wants to keep the level of risk of overkilling fairly low, it will have to eliminate hunting in about one-third of the population units.

In addition to their university affiliations, Dr. Darimont and Mr. Artelle both work for the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, a non-profit which 10 years ago took the provincial government to court to get grizzly bear mortality data released. That data was the basis for the study.