‘They’re terribly worried’

Guide still plans to protest Cape Breton moose cull

There haven’t been any protests against Cape Breton’s controversial moose cull since it began this week, but that could soon change.

Dennis Day, a local hunter, guide Day and organizer of Friends of Cape Breton Moose, told the Cape Breton Post that the only reason there haven’t been demonstrations so far is because he agreed to meet with the RCMP and Parks Canada on Wednesday to discuss the situation.

However, he said unless they tell him the cull is being called off, they can expect opposition from the group, which blocked part of the Cabot Trail leading into the Cape Breton Highlands National Park last year, and interrupted the 2015 harvest when about 30 protesters enter a restricted zone and confronted the First Nations hunters.

“I still have things planned and I’m still planning on doing it,” said Day.

“I’d love to hear that the cull is going to be cancelled but it’s not going to happen. They got it in their head. The only reason that they want to meet with me is they’re going to try to get something out of me to see what I’ve got planned. They’re terribly worried about Remembrance Day because I did have a protest on Remembrance Day, and I did it purposely on Remembrance Day because I knew the RCMP would all be at the ceremonies.”

The moose harvest in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park is part of the fouryear Bring Back the Boreal Forest project, which began in 2014 in an attempt to help limit and reverse the damage being done by a moose population in the park that has been estimated at around 1,800. Parks Canada officials say that’s about four times what the population density should be and browsing moose are turning the boreal forest into grassland by eating young trees, which affects many species that rely on the habitat, including at-risk species like the American marten and the Canada lynx.

Indigenous hunters with treaty rights help with the cull in partnership with the Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources.

The conservation and restoration project focuses on three areas in the 960-squarekilometre national park — Skyline Trail, North Mountain and Warren Lake — and includes tree planting and building fences to keep moose from browsing young trees, as well as reducing the moose population in a specific 20-square-kilometre area of North Mountain. Last year, about 50 moose were harvested by Mi’kmaq hunters from early Nov. 8 to Dec. 10. The 2015 hunt yielded 37 moose. Parks Canada is hoping that at least 60 moose can be taken during this year’s harvest, which is expected to continue until mid-December.

However, Day, a 60-yearold Cape North resident who has been helping hunters bag moose for the past 30 years, said he thinks Parks Canada’s numbers are off.

“They’re saying 1,800; I’m saying maybe 1,000,” he said. ”If anything it declined because of the harsh winters that we had. We lost a lot of moose in the winter of 2015 and in 2016 — a lot.”

He said killing off moose is also bad for business — both his and tourism.

“It affects my business, plus every tourist that comes to Cape Breton says ‘Where can I go to see a moose?’ Everyone that comes here, that’s what they want to see is the moose. And Park Canada wants them gone.”