B.C. grizzly bear population may be declining with salmon stocks
Hunt will open Thursday, despite warnings
BY SUZANNE FOURNIER, THE PROVINCE - SEPTEMBER 9, 2009 9:03 PM
Grizzly bear hunting will start Thursday in B.C., despite dire warnings by
frontline observers that the mighty bears are disappearing along with the
salmon stocks that were the staple of their diet.
“The government should act swiftly, instead of sitting on its hands and
allowing the Sept. 10 fall hunt to open so grizzly bears can be bagged as
trophies,” said Ian McAllister, conservation director of Pacific Wild.
“With the virtual collapse of salmon stocks up and down the coast, all our
iconic species in B.C. are going to be affected, not just grizzly bears, but
eagles, orcas, otters and wolves.
“We are hearing from all frontline observers that watersheds that are
normally teeming with life at this time of year, with seagulls, eagles and
ravens as well as grizzly bears, are silent,” said McAllister, who lives
near Bella Bella.
Reports from 16 major north-central coast watersheds, where dozens of
grizzlies can usually be found gorging on salmon at this time of year, say
there are almost no mother bears with cubs and far fewer males.
“This is the whole coast saying the bears are in the worst danger they’ve
ever been in,” said Fred Seiler of Silvertip Ecotours in Terrace, who has
observed bears on the north coast watersheds for more than 30 years.
Seiler said he has found only tracks of one sow with one cub.
“If I was a government scientist, I wouldn’t allow any bear-hunting this
fall.”
Seiler said he also faults the federal fisheries ministry for allowing six
million pink salmon to be intercepted by net fisheries, along with tens of
thousands of sockeye, chum and coho during recent openings, despite four
consecutive years of extremely low chum salmon returns. Grizzly bears
especially depend on oily, fat chum to survive winter.
Tom Ethier, manager of the B.C. environment ministry’s fish and wildlife
branch, admitted he has heard widespread “anecdotal” reports that grizzly
bear numbers have drastically declined, but said the hunt must go on.
“The fall hunt will go ahead as scheduled and we will consider all
information as we do every year,” said Ethier.
Ethier said his ministry will do a survey of the numbers of grizzly bears in
the Kimsquit watershed near Kitimat, which will provide an “objective”
rather than “anecdotal” count, although he admitted the count will occur
after the hunt has begun.
Ethier noted bears are omnivores and may have abandoned rivers to go after
“the strong berry crop.” He added that there was “poor cub production last
year,” possibly due to a lack of food for the mother bears.
Ethier noted that the B.C. government closed three key areas to grizzly
hunting in June, bringing the total area closed along the central and north
coast to 1.9-million hectares, representing about 30 per cent of B.C.’s
total grizzly habitat.
sfournier@theprovince.com
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