TORONTO, Feb. 20, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Animal Alliance of Canada, on moral and ethical grounds, strongly opposes Nova Scotia’s proposal to open a spring hunt for black bears. The province is Canada’s last not to have such a hunt, and has asked for public input on the idea of also hunting bears in the spring. While female bears with cubs will be protected on paper, experience elsewhere tells us that in the woods, a percentage will inevitably be shot, leaving cubs to die.
Bears are often shot when they visit bait provided by hunters and outfitters. Bears have an incredible sense of smell, several times better than a bloodhound’s and can detect a jelly donut a mile away. Mother bears are cautious, and before approaching bait they usually send their cubs into hiding. Hunters, often excited by an ursine form of “buck fever”, can easily miss seeing the swollen teats of a lactating female, hidden by long, shaggy fur and shadows. This is especially true if the hunter is in a tree stand, viewing the bear from above. Unscrupulous hunters may not even care, shooting first and checking after, confident that if a mistake is made, they can enact the three S’s: shoot, shovel, shut up. Best intentions notwithstanding, Conservation Officers lack resources to launch forensic investigations even if an illegally shot bear carcass is found.
More ethical guides and hunters may suspend the baits above ground, forcing bears to rear up onto their hind legs, the better to reveal the anatomical features that distinguish males and non-nursing females from mother bears, if the angle provides a straight sight-line, and the bear’s long hair or deep shadows or intervening vegetation don’t obscure the view. The fact that supposedly protected mother bears do get shot is indicated by the increase in orphaned cubs that wildlife rehabbers receive from concerned members of the public when spring bear hunts are allowed where they were previously prohibited. Most orphaned cubs are never found and die unseen in the woods of stress, cold, hunger, or predation.
“Most wildlife we once had on our planet are gone,” said Liz White, director of Animal Alliance of Canada. “We want to protect, not kill, who is left. But here we are not even asking for a ban, just for Nova Scotia to be part of the world-wide movement away from so much killing, so much death. The tiny percentage of Canadians who hunt is in decline; we don’t need more death in the woods.”
Barry Kent MacKay, director of Animal Alliance of Canada and a recognized naturalist, adds that we are rapidly losing biodiversity. “About 97 percent of mammal biomass consists of humans and species humans have domesticated, and still we look to kill more. We don’t know how many cubs will be orphaned, but one is too many.”
Barry Kent MacKay, barry@animalalliance.ca, 905-472-9731
Liz White, liz@animalalliance.ca , 416-809-4371
