Grizzly trophy hunt must end: Green MLA
NDP platform was to end practice, but consultations still needed, says minister
A newly elected Green party MLA says he supports a ban on the grizzly trophy hunt and believes his party’s policy position doesn’t go far enough to end the widely unpopular activity.
“Trophy hunting of grizzlies is something that needs to be banned,” said Adam Olsen, a member of the Tsartlip First Nation on southern Vancouver Island and MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.
“It’s important we deal with grizzly trophy hunting. We know that the vast majority of British Columbians are very uncomfortable with the trophy hunt. Whether you live in the cities or rural B.C., it’s been a concern.
“It’s an important issue, and speaks to our relationship with the environment around us.”
The NDP says it plans to ban the grizzly trophy hunt. One option the party has proposed is to make it a condition provincewide that grizzly hunters turn in the head and pelt of a grizzly — a way to end trophy kills, while leaving it open for someone to hunt one for the meat.
“One of our early platform commitments was to end the trophy hunt of grizzly bears,” Environment Minister George Heyman said Friday.
“It is still fully our intention to end the trophy hunt.”
Heyman couldn’t say whether the ban would be in place before the fall hunt, noting there will be consultations with advocates of the ban, guide outfitters, resident hunters, and First Nations, along with the Green party.
There is no mention of the grizzly hunt in the Confidence and Supply Agreement signed by the NDP and Greens in May.
“We’ll certainly consult with them, but we’ll go ahead and meet the commitment we made to British Columbians,” Heyman said. He noted the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations has the statutory responsible for enacting any such hunting ban under the Wildlife Act.
During the election campaign, the Green party’s position was to require any grizzly hunter to pack the meat home — a law that would effectively stop foreign trophy hunters of grizzlies, but not residents.
Coastal First Nations, an umbrella group that has been lobbying to end the trophy hunt for years, says the Green election position does not go far enough.
“That doesn’t work for us,” said Douglas Neasloss, chief of the Kitasoo/Xai’Xais in Klemtu on the central coast. “They can just pack the meat out and throw it in the garbage.”
He said he would be pushing the NDP government to fulfil its promise to end the trophy hunt.
Olsen said he hasn’t spoken to Green party Leader Andrew Weaver about the issue since the election, but agrees the current Green policy position is insufficient.
“We have our platforms, but for me, personally, I’d like to go further than that. It’s important that we go all the way on this.” Weaver is currently on holidays. Olsen said he hasn’t figured out details of enacting the ban, but that he hopes to work with the NDP on the issue.
“I look forward to ... moving policy forward that effectively ends trophy hunting of grizzly bears.”
Neasloss, arguing “trophy hunting provides zero revenue to our local communities,” said bear viewing in comparison generates $2 million in annual ecotourism revenue, and provides seasonal employment for about 50 of the community’s 350 people.
The 50,000-member B.C. Wildlife Federation, representing hunters and fishermen, issued a statement that reads in part: “The future of grizzly bears is not in banning hunting, or creating place-based sanctuaries, it is in taking care of B.C.’s landscape.”
The statement adds: “The longterm viability of grizzly bears means a new approach to funding natural resource management and land use planning. B.C. needs to start investing in natural resource management, adequately funding fish and wildlife management to make sure there are salmon in the rivers, berries on the mountains, and bears in the woods. We are losing what makes B.C. special; as a province we need to work together to conserve what we have.”
Former premier Christy Clark had been a staunch supporter of the grizzly hunt, but during the campaign promised to end the activity in the Great Bear Rainforest alone once elected.
In a highly publicized case in 2013, National Hockey League defenceman Clayton Stoner ignored the wishes of local aboriginals and shot an adult male grizzly in the Kwatna River estuary.
In 2016, Stoner was fined $10,000 under the Wildlife Act for hunting without a proper licence and banned from hunting for three years.