March 14, 2003

Target: Sell More Hunting Licenses

It is hard to understand why government would set a target to increase the number of hunting licenses sold, but that may explain why wolves, Grizzly Bears and other wildlife are at risk in BC. Some advocates have been quick to criticize the March 6, 2003, report of the independent scientific Panel. Those critics may have read nothing more than the Ministry's misleading news release.

Page 22 of the "2003-2006 service plan" for the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection sets an objective to "Optimize the economic contribution of park, fish and wildlife recreation" and set the target for that objective as maintaining or increasing the number of basic hunting licences sold. BC does not have a Ministry of the Environment, and what has replaced it views wildlife as a resource to be exploited.

Government has put out the spin that an independent panel has supported its estimate of the number of Grizzly Bears and has supported its decision to allow hunting. The first two sentences of the panel's report say "Conserving the natural diversity, distribution, and viability of indigenous wildlife populations is one of the highest management priorities of the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection (MWLAP, B.C. Government 1996). Although agreement on this general objective is certainly not universal, we suspect that the majority of British Columbians strongly support it." Of course, British Columbians know that there wasn't a Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection in 1996. In 1996, BC still had a Ministry of the Environment which was expected to have management priorities like conservation of indigenous wildlife populations. That was before the New Era.

The introduction to the panel's report made passing reference to the economic value of the bear hunt before concluding "If we fail to nurture grizzly bears and the conditions necessary for them to thrive, there can be little hope that functionally intact ecosystems will continue to support the diversity of life forms that enhance our lives and the human spirit."

Not only did the Panel not confirm the Ministry's estimate of the number of Grizzly Bears but it remarked that "Methods for assessing trends in grizzly bear populations are perhaps even more poorly developed than the procedures for estimating populations." The Panel criticized low end estimates of bear populations provided by some advocates but after reviewing estimation techniques it also said "The Panel's evaluation of grizzly bear harvest did not reveal any compelling evidence of over-harvest in the province as a whole or in any Grizzly Bear Population Units. Nevertheless, the Panel cannot conclude that over-harvest is not occurring." That is very different from the claim made in the Ministry's news release that "The report indicates that we are on the right track and that our population estimate of at least 13,800 bears is far more accurate than those suggested by some advocacy groups." That claim may be technically correct in that the true number may be closer to 13,800 than it is to 6,000 (or even 4,000), but the report suggests any answer is possible.

The Ministry's news release should be read in the context of the Ministry's objective of "optimizing" economic contributions of wildlife as measured by selling more hunting licenses. That is a long way from the 1996 management priority of conserving indigenous wildlife populations.

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March 10, 2003

Panel says "Reflect Needs of Wildlife"

The Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection (WLAP), under Mister Joyce Murray, put out one of the most misleading news releases yet to be seen using "New Speak" in the "New Era". The opening sentence says "An independent scientific panel appointed on recommendations from the International Association for Bear Research and Management has confirmed that the B.C. government is managing grizzly bears effectively and using sound population estimates." A private company that put out that kind of false advertising would be sued!

The full report of the independent scientific panel is available from the WLAP website at http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/wld/grzz/ or you can go directly to the full portable document format, pdf, report at http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/gbear_finalspr.pdf. The report contains 19 recommendations starting on page 71. In direct contradiction to the claim in Minister Murray's news release, the panel set out four recommendations to improve the Ministry's estimation of the number of Grizzly Bears. The second recommendation refers to the Ministry's methods as "subjective" and urges the Ministry to use "resource selection functions" (RSFs) that can be "applied with far less subjectivity than the F-D method of assessing bear density." The Fuhr-Demarchi (F-D) method is criticized in the panel's report as being a high end estimate based on carrying capacity of the habitat in the absence of human disturbance. In other words, the Ministry bases its estimate on a technique that does not count bears!

The panel went on to make three recommendations with respect to Grizzly Bear "harvests". It recommended that the Ministry "assign higher priority to securing precise population size estimates, than to securing precise vital rate estimates. Sampling error in population estimates are particularly important in terms of risks of population decline due to over-harvest, especially under a LEH" ("limited entry hunting"). Vital rate estimates are estimates of natural survival and reproduction. Estimates based on those techniques are subject to major errors if the number of bears they assume exist as a starting point is wrong. Consequently, the panel recommended that the Ministry focus on getting a "precise population size estimate". That is not what anyone reading the news release would understand as the panel's position!

What might be the two most important recommendations of the panel have received no attention. They recommended that "better joint planning between the Ministry of Forests, Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management, and the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection. For example, the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection should ensure that land use planning initiatives by the Ministry of Forests reflect the needs of wildlife in general, and the needs of grizzly bears in particular, within a context of ecosystem management." The panel then went on to recommend that "the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection aggressively address human access into B.C.'s wild lands, not only to reduce grizzly bear mortality more effectively, but also to manage other species of wildlife that are sensitive to human activity such as elk and caribou. A program established cooperatively by the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection to manage access by motorized vehicles is needed. Restrictions of motorized vehicles in time and space should be a part of this program. When timber harvest is contemplated in largely roadless areas, programs to restrict access are needed."

Contrary to the Ministry's news release, the independent scientific panel has made significant recommendations that would change the way government protects wildlife in general and the Grizzly Bears in particular.

Read the full report of the panel. Do not believe the government news release.