Conservation officers have found two grizzly bear cubs dead at the Thorsen Creek landfill in the Bella Coola Valley in B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest.

“You could see where the cubs were hit,” inspector Len Butler with B.C.’s Conservation Officer Service told The Narwhal

“Tracks and the blood on the road” also suggest the mother of the cubs was struck, Butler said, though conservation officers haven’t found her.

The two cubs are the first grizzly bears to die from human-related causes in the Bella Coola Valley this season, which Butler called a “busier than normal” year for conflict between people and grizzlies.

Officers received a report that the cubs were run over on the Thorsen Creek Bridge on the main highway on June 30. The Bella Coola Valley is narrow.

“Bears do frequent the bridge crossings,” Butler said.

It’s “maybe anywhere from two to five kilometres across the whole valley,” Nuxalk fisheries and wildlife field coordinator Jason Moody told The Narwhal.

Grizzlies make their dens higher in the mountains, but follow creeks down to the river, following “the different runs of salmon as they arrive in the different creeks.”

The river is also where you will find communities of people. And “all these houses are on salmon streams,” Moody noted.

Getting to those salmon runs, bears pass right through communities, where other things can look like food: garbage, fruit trees and smokehouses can be enticing for bears. Nuxalk research has also shown that fruit trees become more appealing to bears as salmon stocks decline. Since 2014, the Nuxalk Nation has used hair sampling to track grizzly bear populations and movement in the Bella Coola Valley.

“If there’s no salmon, any attractant is increased in value at that point. So cherries, apples, gardens,” Moody said. It’s something the Nuxalk didn’t see when “there was always a stable supply of salmon,” he added.

“You have these wild stocks that are suffering or disappearing completely in other watersheds all around us,” Moody said.

But in the Bella Coola area, human efforts are helping to bring back salmon. The Snootli Hatchery, located 11 kilometres from town, releases various salmon species, including chum, into the Bella Coola River and tributaries.

A grizzly bear eats berries. Photo: Jefferson Bray

The problem with fruit trees

“In the area right now we do have a lot of bears that are wandering around,” says inspector Butler. “It’s been a very interesting year. The bears did come out early and start getting into the fruit trees.”

“The scat that’s up and down the highways right now is just pure cherry pits,” Jefferson Bray, who runs a small chalet and offers nature tours in the Bella Coola Valley, told The Narwhal.

The deaths of the two grizzly bear cubs don’t come as a surprise to Bray, who has kept tabs on grizzly bear deaths since moving to the area 15 years ago.

“We knowingly bait them into conflict and we don’t really do anything about it,” Bray said, referring to the fruit trees he sees around the valley, many of which are not secured with electric fencing. “These little cubs are just the first.”

Moody has been helping with the Nuxalk Bear Safety Group since its start more than five years ago. Unlike other community bear programs, this one puts the safety of bears first.

“There’s a deep respect that we have for the bears, which stems from a lot of our creation stories,” he said.

“The private homeowners have to realize there are going to be bears walking up salmon-bearing creeks.”

Grizzlies follow salmon streams into the Bella Coola Valley. Photo: Jefferson Bray

From spring to fall, when grizzly bears are out of their dens and looking for food, the Nuxalk Bear Safety Group wants to help them make their way safely through the Bella Coola Valley.

“There’s increased anxiety as they go throughout the valley because they’re getting pushed from one property to the next,” Moody said.

In some cases, property owners take things into their own hands when grizzlies are on their properties, Moody said. A video of a man shooting at a mother grizzly bear with her cubs went viral in the fall of 2018. The issue of how people deal with bears on their property is not new and far from over.

Securing potential bear attractants

There are efforts to encourage individuals to secure anything that a bear might consider food. The Nuxalk Bear Safety Group helps people with electric fencing kits to use around fruit trees and smokehouses. They also install cameras and monitor bear behaviour to see if fencing is working. Other services include pruning and removing trees and picking up things like composting fish guts from someone’s property if the person doesn’t have access to a vehicle.

Still, not all properties in the valley have been bear-proofed. Bray says part of the issue is attractant laws aren’t tough enough. In many cases, it’s up to landowners to decide whether or not they will do things like put electric fencing around fruit trees.

“The provincial laws are meaningless as they’re written and it makes for impotent, useless enforcement and it is a liability,” Bray said.

The Wildlife Act indicates that property owners are required to make sure attractants are secure, with exceptions for various activities including farm operations, leaving it up to many individuals to decide whether or not to keep attractants out of the reach of bears and other wild animals, Bray said.

While these laws are province-wide, Bray said there’s an opportunity for the Central Coast Regional District to “create a bylaw that circumvents … the exemptions made in the Wildlife Act and the Farm Act.”

“They could basically make a bylaw stating that people must contain their attractants for the safety of all in our community,” he said.

Without that, there are limits to what conservation officers can enforce, though they do encourage landowners to use electric fencing and other means to secure attractants like fruit trees, Butler said.

For Moody and the Nuxalk Nation, the big picture is keeping grizzly bears safe in the long run. The genetic population counts the nation is undertaking are showing preliminary numbers that are far less than provincial population estimates of grizzly bears, Moody said.

When it comes to grizzly bears, “Bella Coola is known as a black hole,” he said. “That’s the image we’re trying to change.”

The Bella Coola Valley used to be a destination for those seeking to make a grizzly bear trophy kill. Since British Columbia’s trophy hunt ended in 2017, Moody has noticed a fresh approach from the province.

“They have a lot more time to actually do work on the ground and with the bears directly,” said Moody.

Currently, the Nuxalk Nation is doing collaborative research with the British Columbia government to look at the sustainability of bear-viewing related activities.

Still, Moody said, there are different attitudes in the valley when it comes to grizzlies that are counter to the approach of the Nuxalk.

“We want we want people to live here … sustainably with the wildlife,” Moody said, “rather than … trying to keep this oasis of their property separate from all the rest of the Great Bear forest.”

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Grizzly bear trophy hunting will be banned, for both resident and foreign hunters, if the NDP form the next provincial government, leader John Horgan promised Thursday.

The NDP is walking a fine line between meshing the party’s views with the 90 per cent of British Columbians who say they oppose the hunt and supporting rural voters who fear a grizzly hunting ban could affect food hunting.

There has been active discussion in caucus, but there was a general recognition of the tremendous opposition to the hunt from both rural and urban residents balanced by the need to reassure hunters that New Democrats are not anti-hunting, George Heyman, NDP environment spokesman said in an interview.

Horgan, describing grizzlies as an iconic species, carefully emphasized that sustenance hunting will not be affected and said B.C.’s heritage and its future can thrive if government makes the right choices.

“This province has a proud outdoor heritage that includes hunting and fishing. We also have a future that includes welcoming the world to enjoy our spectacular scenery and wildlife, creating jobs for British Columbians and a tourism industry that is second to none,” Horgan said at a Vancouver news conference.

Bear viewing creates more jobs and brings up to 12 times more in visitor spending than grizzly hunting, so the trophy hunt is affecting the economy by removing opportunities from the booming ecotourism sector, Horgan said.

Economic Importance of Keeping Grizzly Bears Alive in Great Bear Rainforest from Lonnie Wishart on Vimeo.

No one knows that better than Katherine MacRae of the Commercial Bear Viewing Association.

“A hunted bear can’t be a viewed bear,” she said.

“In recent years, the bear-viewing industry has seen double-digit growth, creating many good jobs in rural areas, but experience has shown that taking guests to view bears that are hunted just doesn’t work,” said MacRae, estimating that bear viewing brings in $13.1 million dollars annually in direct revenues and creates more than 200 jobs.

Environmental organizations and representatives of Coastal First Nations — who banned the trophy hunt in the Great Bear Rainforest four years ago — applauded the NDP move as a good first step to end the needless killing.

However, the question for many was whether grizzly hunting for meat would still be permitted under an NDP ban.

The vast majority of those hunting grizzlies do so for the hide, paws or head, but some resident hunters claim to eat the meat, even though it is generally avoided as it can carry the parasite that causes trichinosis.

B.C.’s grizzly hunt is not a subsistence hunt, it’s about bagging a trophy — a head for the wall or a rug for the floor, Wildlife Defence league campaign director Tommy Knowles said in a news release.

And the only way to end the unpopular hunt is a total ban that does not allow it to continue under the guise of a so-called meat hunt, he said.

At a Grizzly Bear Foundation hearing in Victoria last month, three hunters came forward to say they ate the meat, turning it into sausage or burgers.

It is a claim that provokes skepticism among hunt opponents and raises fears that there could be a loophole in an NDP ban.

“If hunting grizzlies for meat is to be allowed — and very few hunters eat grizzly bear –— tough regulations will need to be put in place to ensure that trophy hunting does not continue under a different guise,” MacRae said.

.@BCNDP Pledge to End B.C.'s Grizzly Bear Trophy Hunt if Elected https://t.co/v6k3eTXrSN #bcpoli #bcelxn17

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 25, 2016

Chris Genovali, executive director of Raincoast Conservation Foundation, a group that has purchased three commercial hunting tenures in the Great Bear rainforest, covering 32,000 square kilometres, said the group appreciates the NDP announcement, but is adamantly opposed to any “pretend-to-eat-the-meat” policy.

Heyman said that under an NDP government, the few people who say they hunt grizzlies for food will be eligible to get a hunting tag, but will be subject to regulations to ensure it is not an excuse for a trophy hunt.

That could mean surrendering the trophy parts of the animal or some other mechanism.

“We are not planning to leave loopholes in the banning of the trophy hunt. We are serious and we will put regulations in place to make it happen,” Heyman said.

“We will ensure that a food hunt is not used as a surrogate for the trophy hunt and we are serious about letting the bear viewing industry succeed and thrive.”

The NDP is planning to hold nation-to-nation discussions with Coastal First Nations to help them achieve their wildlife management and cultural practices goals and representatives of an NDP government would also meet with the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. to discuss compensation, Heyman said.

 “We understand when you affect people’s rights that they have held, governments then need to negotiate how you compensate for that,” he said.

Green Party leader Andrew Weaver has come out against the trophy hunt, but the B.C. Liberals show no sign that they will change the hunt.

The government says there is no need to end the hunt as the grizzly bear population is healthy with an estimated 15,000 bears — a number disputed by some scientists who say the population could be less than half that number.

The Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. is a generous contributor to the Liberal party and between 2011 and May 2015 the organization contributed almost $37,000 to the party.

Auditor General Carol Bellringer is looking into whether the government is managing the grizzly population and her report is expected next spring.

Photo credit: Mike Hoekendijk

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In early October a provincial government news release landed in the inboxes of reporters and researchers around B.C.

It boasted of a new government-commissioned report that concluded B.C. has “a high level of rigour and adequate safeguards in place to ensure the long-term stability of grizzly populations.”

Even though the report was less glowing than the news release and noted there are monitoring difficulties and a lack of funding, the review gave the BC Liberals the ammunition they needed to conclude the controversial practice of hunting grizzlies for sport is just fine.

But, here’s the thing: even if the province’s estimates of 15,000 grizzly bears in B.C. is correct — and it is a figure disputed by independent biologists, some of whom believe the number is as low as 6,000 — the stand-off over hunting intelligent animals for sport isn’t about the science. It’s about values and ethics.

“The ethical argument is clear. Gratuitous killing for recreation and amusement is unethical and immoral,” says Chris Genovali, executive director of Raincoast Conservation Foundation, one of the organizations fighting to stop the trophy hunt, which takes the lives of about 300 grizzly bears in B.C each year.

“This is a moral issue. This is about ethics and values,” reiterated Val Murray of Justice for B.C. Grizzlies, an organization hoping to make the grizzly hunt an issue in the upcoming provincial election.

“After more than 30 years as a teacher, if a child in the classroom was deliberately hurting animals, he would be immediately referred for counselling before the behaviour escalated into anything else, but people go out and just kill these bears,” she said.

Dramatic pictures of grizzlies fishing for salmon bring tourists from all over the world to “Super, Natural B.C.”

But those tourists rarely see the gut-churning videos of a grizzly being shot, attempting to run for his life and then being shot again — a sequence included in the new film “Trophy” produced by LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics.

Lush Cosmetics Presents: Trophy from Lush Cosmetics on Vimeo.

Yet, Premier Christy Clark and the BC Liberals show no sign of changing course and, in a parting shot, one of the most energetic supporters of the hunt, retiring Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett told Vaughn Palmer on Voice of B.C. that parts of the province have too many grizzly bears and they need to be shot.

It is a view that is increasingly out-of-step with the majority of British Columbians and in direct opposition to the views of Coastal First Nations who have banned trophy hunting in their territory.

Following a trend set by previous polls, an October 2015 Insights West poll found that 91 per cent of British Columbians oppose hunting animals for sport. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 per cent.

“Look at who we are as a people and a nation and where we are headed,” environmental activist Vicky Husband urged the Grizzly Bear Foundation board of inquiry in Victoria.

“We are past the time to stop grizzly hunting. It’s not ethically right,” she told the three-person panel headed by philanthropist Michael Audain.

In addition to holding public hearings, the panel is talking to First Nations, scientists, hunters, guide outfitters and conservation organizations and will use the information it garners to set up conservation, research and education programs.

The group, which is looking at the effects of climate change, urbanization, loss of habitat, accidents and food availability as well as the hunt, is writing a report that will be handed to government in February.

Another report headed government’s way this spring is from Auditor General Carol Bellringer, who is looking at whether the province is “meeting its objective of ensuring healthy grizzly bear populations throughout B.C.”

The government claims its decisions are science-based and points to the new scientific review, but the Audain panel was cautioned to take the report with a grain of salt

“This was a government report, commissioned by government, for government. It was not peer-reviewed,” warned professional forester Anthony Britneff.

Government estimates of the number of grizzly bears are based on models, but Melanie Clapham, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Victoria, who has researched grizzlies for a decade, cautioned that more research is needed.

“Models are only as good as the numbers you put in to them,” she said.

Photo credit: Mike Hoekendijk

The Liberal government scrapped the NDP’s short-lived moratorium on grizzly hunting after the 2001 election, but the hunt does not have the support of at least one key figure in former premier Gordon Campbell’s government.

Martyn Brown, Campbell’s former chief of staff, wants trophy hunting banned for grizzly bears and all other species.

“Precious animals and wildlife are being taken for nothing but a trophy. They are not being taken for food or ceremonial purposes, they are simply for people’s self-aggrandizement and whatever twisted, distorted satisfaction they get from killing an animal,” he said in an interview.

Bear Viewing 12 Times More Beneficial For Economy Than Hunting

A 2012 study by Stanford University in conjunction with the Center for Responsible Travel found that bear viewing groups in the Great Bear Rainforest generated “more than 12 times more in visitor spending than bear hunting.”

But there is increasing concern that the two activities cannot co-exist.

Grizzly bears are a passion for Dean Wyatt, owner of Knight Inlet Lodge, and he takes pride in showing tourists the bears feeding on salmon and berries near his lodge.

But, even though Wyatt wants more British Columbians to understand the vital role grizzlies play in the environment, most of his guests are from overseas because he has found from bitter experience that advertising in B.C. is dangerous for the bears.

“I would love to have more British Columbians, but the ones that come first are the hunters, so we don’t market very much in B.C.,” he told the Audain panel.

“If we put something in the paper, immediately the hunters show up to see if the bears are there. The hunters are there in their boats 24 hours later. It’s horrible,” Wyatt said.

Photo taken on a Wildlife Defence League mission to monitor and document the grizzly trophy hunt. Photo credit: Chelsea Miller/Wildlife Defence League

It is a stark example of the conflict between bear viewing and bear hunting, according to Katherine MacRae of the Commercial Bear Viewing Association, an organization that emphasizes that bear viewing must have a neutral impact on the animals.

Even with the no-impact rules, bears quickly learn that humans in a boat are not necessarily threatening and that puts them at risk when hunters show up.

“Our bears that are viewed will be killed because they are not running away . . .  hunting and viewing cannot take place together,” MacRae told the three-person panel.

Expansion of the bear-viewing industry, which brings in $13-million in direct revenue annually, is being constrained by hunting, MacRae said.

“A bear-viewing operator in the Kootenays had his guests witness a kill and then they had to see the dead bear strapped on the roof of the car,” she said.

Why Does BC Still Kill Grizzlies for Sport? https://t.co/IfBU9YrTX6 #bcpoli #bcelxn17 #cdnpoli #BanBigMoney @Justice4BCGrizz @christyclarkbc

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 23, 2016

Foreign Hunters Pay Thousands of Dollars to Kill B.C. Grizzlies

Most grizzlies hunted in B.C. are killed by foreigners who pay upwards of $16,000 for the chance to display the head and hide, but Jamie Scott of Victoria was faced with a major decision when he was awarded one of the $80 grizzly licences in the government’s lottery-style draw for resident hunters.

“As a hunter, at first I was really excited,” said Scott, but doubts set in as he recalled his father’s hunting ethics.

“You don’t become a better hunter by targeting unnecessary animals. You have to find yourself on the right side of conservation,” said Scott, who gave up his licence in return for a bear-watching honeymoon, with his wife Nicole, at Tweedsmuir Park Lodge.

“We saw 11 grizzlies and it altered my mind on the trophy hunt. I think it’s a black eye for B.C.,” Scott said.

Genovali said that the government’s position is puzzling as the economic argument against the hunt is clear.

“Notably it appears that the revenue generated by fees and licences affiliated with the trophy killing of grizzlies fails to cover the cost of the province’s management of the hunt,” Genovali said.

“As a result, B.C. taxpayers, most of who oppose the hunt according to poll after poll, are in essence being forced to subsidize the trophy killing of grizzlies,” he said.

Between 2011 and May 2015, the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. contributed almost $37,000 to the BC Liberal party.

At the heart of the ethics argument is the difference between hunting for a trophy and hunting for sustenance. Most hunters do not eat bear meat, especially as it sometimes carries the parasite that causes trichinosis — but three hunters who spoke in Victoria insisted they hunt bears for the meat.

With the provincial election just six months away, so far, only Green Party leader Andrew Weaver has come out against the hunt. The NDP has not yet settled on a position.

Photo: Misty MacDuffee/Raincoast

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Official recognition that a Canadian species is in trouble is no guarantee that the slide towards extinction can be slowed or halted, a new study has found.

A paper by Raincoast Conservation Foundation scientist Caroline Fox and co-authors from the University of Victoria, published Monday by the scientific journal PLOS ONE, looks at species assessed by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) and concludes that, instead of recovering, many have become more endangered.

“Using the COSEWIC assessments, obviously we are not doing as well as we would like,” Fox said in an interview.

The study, Trends in Extinction Risk for Imperiled Species in Canada, aimed to assess the effectiveness of Canada’s biodiversity conservation and the report card is not good. 

Fox and her colleagues looked at 369 species and found that 115 had become more endangered, 202 were unchanged and 52 improved in status. Only 20, amounting to 5.4 per cent, improved to the extent that they were no longer at risk of extinction.

Species at risk of extinction or extirpation are initially reviewed by COSEWIC, an independent scientific panel that makes recommendations to government, and some species are then listed under the Species at Risk Act (SARA). Once a species is listed under the Species at Risk Act it has legal protection and, for most species, critical habitat is supposed to be identified and protected.

However, the study found that, in most cases, critical habitat was not fully identified. Of the 221 cases studied that required critical habitat protection, only 56 met the requirements.

“We suggest that the Canadian government should formally identify and protect critical habitat, as is required by existing legislation,” says the study.

“In addition, our finding that at-risk species in Canada rarely recover leads us to recommend that every effort be made to actively prevent species from becoming at-risk in the first place.”

Species at risk are protected by patchwork layers of legislation and the Species at Risk Act is the last resort, Fox said.

The study notes that recent weakening of federal laws that protect habitat, such as changes to the Fisheries Act, may result in more species heading for trouble.

“Future legislation should be underpinned by a strong mandate to conserve habitat and we recommend that any legislative changes that may reduce habitat protection (e.g. the Fisheries Act) should be reconsidered,” the report says.

Photo: Gregory Slobirdr Smith via Flickr

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