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The B.C. Wildlife Federation is responding to the call for feedback on the B.C. Provincial Government’s Grizzly Bear Stewardship Framework Public Engagement.
The BCWF is committed to working with First Nations to restore the Grizzly bear hunt in B.C., governed by science-based management. The foundations of renewable resource management include funding and capacity; science (inventory, management, monitoring, objectives, and research); legislation; and finally, governance. A number of these are missing from the stewardship framework.
A future with abundant Grizzly bears will not occur in absence of these fundamentals:
- B.C. has consistently reduced funding to renewable resource management and eliminated 100 years of institutional knowledge from Grizzly bear programs.
- B.C. has failed to set objectives for Grizzly bear recovery and continues to make wildlife management decisions based on political expediency rather than available evidence.
- Evidence points to habitat disturbance as a main driver of Grizzly bear declines, not hunting.
- On-the-ground action to protect Grizzly habitat is practically non-existent. Research and data collection have ground to a halt.
The threats British Columbia is now facing are orders of magnitude more than they were just three decades ago and the Provincial government’s response has been to dramatically reduce funding and capacity.
Without a commitment to provincial funding and capacity in the plan, this is a plan to fail.
The BCWF fully supports the return of a science-based grizzly hunt.
Without legislated objectives and a commitment to science-based wildlife management, this plan will fail.
Learn more about the Grizzly Bear Stewardship Framework Public Engagement.
Lend your voice to our campaign – click to contact your MLA.
Click here to read or download our full statement.