I would think the BC provincial biologists and wildlife managers need to implement some rules that they actually demonstrate hunting success when acquiring exclusive hunting rights. Granted they may be against all hunting but this is a blatant workaround of the rules and wildlife manager efforts. How in the world can management goals be achieved??
Claiming to have saved about 130 bears since they started doing this they promote bear viewing and photography in the area instead. Cool I love to photograph bears when I see them but this smells a lot like Lynn Rogers research mentality and we all should know about the conflict he had with hunters and the wildlife biologists questioning his methods. Granted DNR, wildlife managers have some arrogant players who dislike public input but many of them spend their whole life in this field and know what they are doing.
So if a bear or two decide to turn on the tourists, start becoming familiar with humans, causing an injury or death what does that do to their mission of protecting the bears?? The injured or their families will want action, aggressive bear would likely be killed.
So if the same approach was used for those valuable sheep, caribou, and even deer tags, what then?? The nature fakers take over proper wildlife management which includes regulated hunting?? They have the funds and are going down that path with their elitist attitude. Sneaky way around it instead of working through a legal system that requires input from all citizens to change law , instead just those with cash buying up "exclusive" hunting rights.
I like bears but this kind of stuff really gets my dander up.
And if the First Nations are protecting Spirit Bears out of a sincere Religious belief, then that ought to be respected. Within reason. I don’t know how the jurisdictions work out, but if these bears are sacred to the local FN People, then they should be permitted to provide these bears with protection within their Ancestral lands.
Of course, I grew up in a Republic, where being in the minority doesn’t mean that you have no rights. Monarchies are different that way.
The problem is that sooner or later there will be too many of these overprotected bears for the forage base. That should get interesting....
Somehow, the Sacred White Dump Bear doesn’t suggest the same Power and mystical significance of a Spirit Bear finding its own way in the unspoiled Wilderness.
