13 bears killed illegally in B.C. in past two years
Guides say 2017 hunting ban hurt industry, but bear-viewing business is on the rise
In the two years since the province banned grizzly bear hunting, at least 13 bears have been illegally killed, Postmedia News has learned.
“Since the grizzly bear hunt was closed, there have been 13 reports of illegally killed grizzly bears,” said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development who wouldn’t give their name.
“Illegal kills include poaching, self-defence without reporting the incident or a found grizzly bear where the use of a firearm is considered the cause of death,” the spokesperson said in an email.
B.C. banned the hunt in December 2017, with Minister Doug Donaldson saying British Columbians told the province that “the grizzly hunt is not in line with their values.”
The ban was first proposed against trophy hunting of grizzlies and any hunting in the Great Bear Rainforest but it was extended to include hunting the bears for sustenance anywhere in the province after consulting with First Nations, stakeholder groups and the public, and finding 78 per cent called for an outright ban, the province said at the time.
First Nations can harvest the bears for food, social or ceremonial purposes under their Aboriginal or treaty rights.
The ban wasn’t implemented to control the population of grizzlies, estimated at 15,000 in B.C., the ministry said. “The closure of the licensed grizzly bear hunt was not in response to a conservation concern,” the spokesperson said.
A year ago, B.C.’s hunting guides launched a class-action lawsuit against the province, accusing the government of going ahead with the ban knowing it would harm the province’s 245 guide outfitters and of not taking proper wildlife management practices into account. A certification hearing for the class action is scheduled for court in March.
The suit filed in B.C. Supreme Court said 118 guides held allocations and quotas for the grizzly hunt when the ban was called. It said about 250 grizzlies were killed every year.
Guides at the time said outfitters were hit hard by the ban. All non-resident bear hunters must use a guide outfitter and fees were around $25,000 per trip.
The lawsuit said outfitters have been guiding hunts for over 100 years and the industry directly employed 2,000 people and added $116 million to the economy.
The B.C. Wildlife Federation said there was no scientific basis for the ban and it predicted the death of more prey animals, such as moose and more grizzly-human conflicts. The Tahltan Central Government said it and other First Nations and other stakeholders weren’t consulted before B.C. banned the hunt and called it irresponsible, counterproductive and dangerous.
The Forest Ministry said the previous grizzly bear harvest was conservative and sustainable and the “overall hunting mortality” of the bears had averaged one to two per cent of the population each year. The spokesperson said the ban is “not anticipated to have a significant or measurable impact on grizzly bear populations or the ecosystems they live in.”
When the ban was announced, opponents said the $10-$25 portion of the hunting-guide fee that went to conservation would be lost and could hurt conservation efforts.
But last year the 70 B.C. bear-watching guides began charging their customers a $10$25 fee that was donated to conservation groups, said Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of the Grizzly Bear Foundation. In 2019, $114,500 in conservation fees were collected and about half went to the foundation and the other half to the Nanwakolas Council, whose member First Nations own the bear-watching Knight Inlet Lodge and will use it to support grizzly bear conservation on the coast, according to the Commercial Bear Viewing Association.
The fees collected are triple the yearly amount the guide outfitters collected for conservation, said the association’s executive director, Kathy MacRae, in an email.
The 70 bear-watching companies employ 62 full-time and 211 seasonal employees, she said.
Bear-viewing tours charge about $400-a-night per person and visitors spend on average $10,000 a week in B.C., in addition to what they pay for the tours, she said.
The industry has grown since the hunting ban was announced, she said.