Richmond - The Editor, Last Saturday, I joined other demonstrators at the provincial Legislature in Victoria to protest the continuation of the trophy hunting of grizzly bears in British Columbia.
Richmond - The Editor, Last Saturday, I joined other demonstrators at the provincial Legislature in Victoria to protest the continuation of the trophy hunting of grizzly bears in British Columbia.Several hundred permits are issued each year to resident and non-resident hunters whose expectation is to kill a grizzly bear and then remove its head, paws and fur for trophy purposes.The carcasses are not commonly used as food.There is no economic justification for this hunt.Tourism related to grizzly bear viewing brings more than ten times the revenue to the provincial coffers than trophy hunting.There is no ecological justification for this hunt. Grizzly bears play a critical role as an apex predator in the forests.And there is no ethical justification to allow hunters to slaughter an animal simply to obtain some perverse thrill.Killing for food is onething, but killing because you like to see such a magnificent animal die is just plain sick.Provincial statistics suggest that there are an estimated 15,000 grizzly bears in the province, but the BC Ministry of Forests, Lands and Resource Operations claim that the hunt has no significant impact on grizzly bear numbers, despite the fact grizzly bears have been eliminated from at least 35 per cent of the province.The species has been essentially eradicated from the lower U.S. states where hunting is now banned and it has been assigned "threatened" status under the Endangered Species Act.In this day and age, killing animals for fun is simply wrong.If I decide to go outside and kill a stray cat for fun, I go to jail.Yet if I slaughter a magnificent wild animal for fun, the provincial government asks me if I'd like to do it again next year.Modern society simply does not condone trophy hunting anymore.A recent poll of British Columbians by Insights West, a local market research firm, confirms this assertion.The poll found that 90 per cent of B.C. residents are opposed to trophy hunting.What with pipelines and oil tankers putting our waterways at risk and pine beetles destroying our forests, the government says it is concerned about our environment.Well, it's time Minister Thomson actually does something about it and stops this hunt.Craig Smith Craig Smith Richmond Richmond
