Bands seek greater role in grizzly management
South Coast First Nations live with bears, aim to work with conservation officers
A group of South Coast First Nations have signed a memorandum of understanding pledging to work together on leading wildlife management in their traditional territories.
The Namgis, Mamalilikulla and Kwikwasut'inuxw Haxwa'mis First Nations plan to press for an active role in grizzly bear management in the northern Vancouver Island region in collaboration with the B.C. Ministry of Environment.
“We have agreed to work together for grizzly bear protection in our territory,” said Mike Willie, one of the hereditary chiefs of the Kwikwasut'inuxw. “Coming together will give us a broader collective mandate when it comes to wildlife management in our collective territories. This is what we'll approach the government with.”
The memorandum grew out of a series of roundtable discussions on grizzly conservation and ecotourism facilitated by the Grizzly Bear Foundation that drew participants from across B.C. and Yukon.
“The Conservation Officer Service takes a pretty top-down approach,” said Willie, who operates the bear-watching firm Sea Wolf Adventures in Port McNeill. “They come in and make quick decisions about what to do with a bear when there is conflict, but our people live out there and we know these bears.”
Provincial conservation officers worked with Indigenous land guardians to trap and relocate a grizzly known as Mali from Hanson Island earlier this year.
The operation was billed as a new era of co-operation with First Nations, but internal government correspondence disclosed under freedom of information legislation shows the conservation officers opposed the relocation, depicting the bear's behaviour as “aggressive.”
Mali was shot after an apparently threatening encounter with a man 30 kilometres from the dropoff location.
From the start, it was clear that the Indigenous guardians saw the situation very differently than the conservation officers at the scene, said Willie.
“The COS looks at ( bear conflicts) through a different lens,” he said. “Our Indigenous guardians said Mali was not aggressive when they got there.”
The officers airlifted the bear and released it before a tracking collar could be located, which prevented them from knowing that Mali was on the move.
“I think that led to Mali's death,” Willie said. “We could have intervened.”
The Commercial Bear Viewing Association and the Grizzly Bear Foundation are organizing a series of grizzly behaviour and conflict management workshops for conservation officers and Indigenous guardians.
“There are other voices out there that know how to handle these situations with non-lethal techniques,” said Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of the foundation. “The training will include First Nations values and we are also hoping that the Indigenous guardians will also receive the kind of training that the COS gets.”
The signatory First Nations met with the environment minister earlier this year to discuss their vision and the need for Indigenous people to take a leading role in wildlife management as a matter of reconciliation.
“The grizzly bear is considered an ancestor that we have had a relationship with for thousands of years and requires the management of the nations to ensure that it is protected from coexistence encounters and commercial hunting,” they said in a statement.
The nations are seeking a “collaborative and constructive relationship” with the provincial government and conversation officers concerning grizzly conservation, they said.
Requires the management of the nations to ensure that it is protected from coexistence encounters.