Grizzly Fate

June-July 2005

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

by Chris Genovali

© photo by Ian McAllister/Raincoast

Having emerged from their winter hibernation, spring should be a time of renewal for British Columbia’s grizzly bears. Instead, these icons of wilderness will be subject once again to being shot for sport. Since BC’s Liberal government overturned the grizzly hunting moratorium in 2001, approximately 1000 grizzlies have been killed, close to 75% by trophy hunters.

The recreational killing of grizzly bears throughout most of the Great Bear Rainforest on BC’s central and north coasts began again on April 1st. Proposed land use plans for the Great Bear Rainforest will do next to nothing to address the trophy hunting of grizzlies and other large carnivores. In fact, the land use plans for the central and north coasts would institutionalize grizzly hunting across the landscape, as well as trophy hunting within parks and protected areas.

Equally troubling is that the kill quotas are based on the government’s wildly inflated grizzly population estimates in which virtual bears predominate and statistical uncertainty is conveniently ignored.

Given that the land use plans will likely leave over 70% of grizzly habitat in the Great Bear Rainforest unprotected from logging and other industrial activity, the unnatural mortality represented by trophy hunting becomes even more problematic. Habitat protection and species protection are inextricably linked; artificially separating these issues is an outdated approach to conservation that ignores the ecological impacts associated with the killing of top predators.

The trophy hunting of coastal grizzlies is not much of a sport as it consists of blowing away bears primarily at their two Chris Genovali main feeding grounds—estuaries in the spring and salmon spawning streams in the fall. In the spring, grizzlies are often in full view on the estuaries where they will be shot by trophy hunters. According to wildlife scientists Dr. Brian Horejsi, Dr. Barrie Gilbert and Dr. Lance Craighead, the coastal grizzly hunt resembles a ‘search and destroy mission’ with trophy hunters employing aircraft, electronic aids, and motorized transport along rivers and logging roads. They point out that guide/ outfitters with foreign clients, and resident hunters, charter float planes, fly along the coast, land at road staging areas, and drive roads or take boats up rivers; some use permanent, illegal, elevated stands overlooking salmon spawning sites.

The economics of continuing the grizzly hunt don’t make sense either, particularly on the coast. Dean Wyatt, owner of Knight Inlet Lodge, has said, “There is no economic justification for the grizzly hunt. In fact, it pales in comparison to the tourism values of saving the grizzly bear.” A 2003 report by Raincoast Conservation Society and the Centre for Integral Economics bears that out: grizzly bear viewing generates approximately twice the amount of annual revenue as the grizzly hunt.

Editor’s Note: We suggest that readers support grizzly bear viewing through organizations like the Homalco First Nation (www.bearsofbute.com) and Tide Rip Tours (www.grizzlycanada.com).