Grizzly bear hunt far from fair play
Anyone who kills a grizzly bear because they wish to (a) mount its head on their den wall or (b), skin it for a rug or (c), immortalize the entire animal in a pose of taxidermist-wrought ferocity, as I once saw as a centrepiece in a living room, is not necessarily a son of a bitch, though odds are good.
That said, there are legitimate reasons for shooting a grizzly. I can think of one, anyway. If a grizzly threatens life and limb, it’s fair game to kill it, though if it’s close enough to threaten life and limb I’m putting my money on the grizzly.
And if you happen to live so far off-grid that grizzly meat is a source of protein, OK, happy dining … though unless you’re psychotically anti-social, why you can’t hoof it to the nearest meat counter is beyond me. But as sport? My idea of sport is a test between equals. Tell me, brave trophy hunters, what’s the score in the Human-Grizzly game so far? How many losses in B.C. has Man suffered in the 2016 season? None? Exactly. It’s not a test of wills hunters are playing when they kill a grizzly: it’s slaughter. It’s a Canucks run for the Stanley Cup. The outcome is preordained. I understand how hunting in much of the province exists as part of the cultural fabric. Many British Columbians — even many Metro Vancouverites — grew up with hunting. Hunting can be a legitimate pastime.
But to hunt grizzlies? When their populations have been extirpated from a historical range that stretched into Mexico and to the eastern edge of the Great Plains? When they have been extirpated already from much of southern B.C.? When nine of B.C.’s 56 extant population units are listed as “threatened” and the province’s entire population is listed as “vulnerable?” When their population estimates are just that — estimates — because no one knows for certain what their exact numbers are? (The number usually given is 15,000. It’s thought to be a quarter of the world’s remaining grizzly population.)
And what other reasons could there be to hunt and kill a grizzly? There are the usual bogus excuses: That it taps into man’s atavistic urge to hunt, since shopping at Costco just doesn’t do it. That it’s a reconnect with nature — though while those who espouse that claptrap somehow miss the irony they’re ushering along the end of nature. That the grizzly’s majesty reflects on their own predatory ferocity and virility. (Which is getting closer to the truth. I’ve seen a trophy hunt and wrote about it. Two wealthy German industrialists had paid guide outfitters to take them into Spatsizi Provincial Park to shoot caribou. Two more feckless hunters could not be imagined. The guides did the tracking, then picked out the two biggest bulls in the herd. It took the Germans seven shots from 100 yards to bring the bulls down. The last shot was at point-blank range because the bull was still alive. It was as pathetic and sad as anything I’ve ever witnessed. The most telling part of the hunt: The head guide cut off the bulls’ testicle sacs and presented them to the gleeful Germans.)
But the real reasons people hunt grizzly bears are this:
One, they enjoy killing things, and two, because they can.
The only reason they can is because our provincial government allows them to do so on the laughable premise that slaughtering 275 or so grizzly bears a year constitutes a significant economic contributor to our northern constituencies — this despite one study that found bear-viewing tourism in just the Great Bear Rainforest generated 12 times more revenue than the province’s entire bear hunt.
But Premier Christy Clark continues to peddle this fiction for the same reason she goes through the coy theatrics of reluctantly endorsing the twinning of the Kinder Morgan pipeline — but only if her five conditions are met! She allows the hunt to continue because she doesn’t want to alienate the northern and rural constituencies that brought her government to power. It’s smart politics, and environmentally reprehensible — which in B.C. is too often becoming a redundancy. In this, where the imperative to hang onto power overrides a bear’s right to life, the bear doesn’t stand a chance. The least we could do is even up the odds a bit. We could change the rules. To that brave hunter who still feels the caveman’s urge to kill, we could say:
“Here’s a sharpened stick, you magnificent beast. Go at it. May the best predator win.”