By: Barry Kent MacKay
Honourary Director
The ease with which my species finds reason to kill – our own or any other species – alarms me. It is what we do, so often, so well, on seemingly any pretext.
Someone, somewhere, presumably in the bureaucracy of the Alberta Ministry of Forestry and Parks, and certainly the Minister himself, the Hon. Todd Loewen, thinks it is a good idea, to turn living grizzly bears into stuffed heads, or maybe rugs or full body taxidermy mounts, in return, of course, for cash for government coffers. But we join experts in conservation and bear biology in knowing otherwise.
The Minister has allowed grizzly bears – the name we use for the kind of brown bear found in Alberta – who are deemed to be a “nuisance”, to be legally killed for trophies. This is called, “…taking a proactive approach to help Albertans co-exist with wildlife…”. I guess the theory is that you can co-exist with any animal who is dead.
People like, and are good at, killing, and so there is a surfeit of hunters eager to turn a live bear into a stuffed trophy.
Here is how the scheme works:
- Hunters submit their names to the Ministry
- Ministry receives a call about a bear who is deemed a “nuisance”
- A hunter name is arbitrarily drawn
- The hunter is given the location of the bear and gets to shoot the animal to be skinned and preserved as a trophy.
This is, to the Minister, co-existence.
But not to numerous scientists, conservationists and folks who know about bears, who have studied them, and how to co-exist with them, and have opposed this plan.
Bears can be dangerous, but in a province that just saw one of its major tourist attractions, the town of Jasper burn down, as did Fort McMurray a few years earlier, climate change is vastly more dangerous. I can’t help but point to the irony that a province suffering so much loss from fires whose number and ferocity is exacerbated by methane generated by the raising of the cows, has a government that wants to protect people from every so infrequent bear predation.
“Problem” bears who, to use the government’s wording, are “responsible for the increasing negative interactions” from which “families and communities” must be protected, mostly means bears who are likely to do what bears do. This is not really “management”, but politically accommodating the powerful industries that profit from killing animals.
Neither independent scientists nor animal protectionists – people with expertise, including with means of non-lethal co-existence – are involved in most “game” management plans, and that is true here. This scheme was established in secrecy.
There is nothing “scientific” about selecting against bears on the basis of them having scared someone, being near or in a community, or eating farmed animals. Experts know that bears have relatively slow reproductive rates, and that such animals must counter low replacement with longer life spans. Grizzlies, when not killed, can live up to twenty years, but females don’t breed until they are from 3 to 8 years of age, and then only once every 2 to 3 years. They have from about 1 to 4 cubs, averaging only 2.
A problem I have is that experience shows that when a monetary value is placed on a species, that species usually faces increased pressure toward endangerment and extinction. And trophy hunting provides economic incentive to deem bears to be a “problem”, thus eligible for execution. Right now, a quick search online can find bits and pieces of grizzly bears sold for a variety of prices, up to $21,995.00 for a “full body mount”. You can buy a grizzly bear-skin rug for over $13,000, although some are cheaper. A “shoulder mount” which is the head and shoulders of a taxidermized bear is a big bargain, I guess, at $2,445.00.
We constantly hear that habitat loss is the key threat to species survival. True, but the monetary value of the species when dead is also often significant. Rhinos, northern cod, leopards, elephants, numerous parrot species, whales, various tropical reef fish, and hundreds of other species of animals and plants – orchids, tropical timber species, cacti and so on – have become endangered, extirpated or extinct, because of their value, even when habitat exists. Bears are what scientists call “K-selected” species, characterized by being relatively large, having low reproduction rates, long gestation, slow maturation and extended parental care, relatively long life spans. They tend to live in stable environments.
The cards are stacked against grizzlies, now missing from much of their former range. Their environment is no longer stable, being burned out from under them and their forest homes “harvested” for profit. They face numerous threats from human encroachment, many killed when hit by locomotives as they feed on grain spilled from train cars.
They don’t need another proven threat to their survival, but that is exactly what the Alberta government has produced. The economic incentive to declare a bear a problem so money can be made may seem small, but given the vulnerability of the species, it should not exist, at all.
How You Can Help:
The Alberta Ministry of Forestry and Parks needs to hear from you, even if you don’t live in Alberta.
Please print and collect signatures on this petition. Be sure to complete the petition carefully so signatures aren’t rejected when it is being reviewed by the clerk. Petitions must include original signatures, but there is no age requirement for those who sign.
Completed petitions can be mailed to:
MLA Sarah Elmeligi
PO 8781
Canmore, AB
T1W 0C1
References:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/27/whats-the-beef-with-cows-and-the-climate-crisis
https://www.britannica.com/science/K-selected-species
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