Wildlife Management in BC - an Organized Mess

[huntingfamily]

Thoughts?

https://www.facebook.com/20106280659...1022902261455/

[adriaticum]

Wildlife management is just bickering over depleted resources caused by human overpopulation.

[IronNoggin]

Regardless of the entirely unenlightened response directly above, I largely concur with the author's position:

Wildlife management in B.C. - An organized mess

British Columbia is unique in terms of the range of our ecosystems and biodiversity. B.C. could also be considered North America’s melting pot in terms of how our environment is organized and the diversity of wildlife that use it.

B.C. is where the north (cool) meets the south (warm), east (prairies) meets west (mountains), wet (coastal) meets interior (dry), low (sea level) meets high (alpine), with everything in between.

We also have the unfortunate reality that the Supreme Court of Canada decided that human population numbers equate to political representation. B.C., like most of the world, sees our cities growing faster than rural areas, resulting in political representation increasing in urban areas and declining in rural areas. As most “good” politicians tend to do, they support decisions and budgets favouring their urban ridings, leaving fewer and fewer scraps for what is required to manage sparsely populated rural areas.

As I wrote in Part 2, we also have the centralization of government and their statutory decision making powers being slowly transferred from a diverse B.C. into a single building in Victoria where everyone is encouraged to think and act the same.

Taken together, these factors lead to an inadequate understanding of what is required to effectively manage the 90% of B.C.’s landmass that is considered rural, and outside of our population centres in southwestern B.C. An insufficient budget to fund the ministries that regulate our rural landscapes and lack of understanding by our elected representatives leads to the current mismanagement we now experience.
Countering this is the call by many organizations that we need to follow the science and get back to managing things for the betterment of our critters and not just for what is political expedient for our masters.

I agree, but… Whose science do we follow?

Our biologist world is just as mixed up as our political world.

Don’t believe this? Then pick one issue relating to wildlife management, go online and try to make sense of the dozens of differing views by biologists, at least from those who call themselves biologists, experts, or scientists.
Hard to pick whose science to follow.

Unfortunately, this mishmash of so-called expert or knowledgeable biologists is not going away anytime soon.
Biologists that lived their lives looking after our critters are mostly gone from our wildlife management branch (retired), and are now being replaced by a new generation who believe we need to do things differently.
Decisions like killing moose to see if that works to increase caribou, or create another park to see if that works, or only focus on endangered species (orca, caribou) thinking they are more important than other species populations (i.e., moose, mule deer), have now become the norm.

Most of B.C.’s biologists receive their education in B.C.’s three big universities: SFU, UBC, and UVic. In years past this was not an issue as students were trained by instructors who knew and understood what they were teaching.

Today’s biologists get much of their training from political activists masquerading as professors. Activist instructors who detest the rural B.C. we currently have with active forestry, mining, ranching, gas and oil development, and pipelines.

They now preach to our children, their students, that all this must stop if B.C. is going to maintain our biological diversity. They also teach that it is not a biologist’s job to figure out how to balance human needs with those of our critters.

This new type of employee they create is now populating our ministries and becoming our natural resource decision makers.

Combine the political decisions to not fund or provide the resources required for proper management with biologists more interested in shutting things down rather than managing, and then throw in the mess we call land claims, which others will call “rightful ownership.”

Not hard to figure out why not much managing is occurring, other than the 'shut’er down' or 'stop what you are doing' mentality.

Also, not hard to figure out why we see large parts of B.C. being barricaded to hunters and fishers when the prevailing beliefs are that there are insufficient resources to meet local needs, never mind everyone else’s. When we believe government is not looking after what we currently have, need, or cherish, those that can will begin to protest and protect what they deem as theirs, irrespective of government.

We also see the politically active ENGO organizations working double-time lobbying that B.C. must stop what we are doing. Hence the 'all or nothing' solutions they espouse, which are meant to divide those of us who care, as their intent is not to have a diverse rural economy that uses our natural resources wisely.

Their intent is to have a playground to visit where consumptive users of our environment are absent.

The reality is we need to meet on some type of common ground and convince government to be there with us.

In some places we will need to protect and conserve more, in others, focus on the values that support our communities.

As the old saying goes: Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

I just hope that does not apply to our great province.

https://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/opi...ess-1.24277339

[358mag]

Nog so very true .

The reality is we need to meet on some type of common ground and convince government to be there with us.
In some places we will need to protect and conserve more, in others, focus on the values that support our communities.

As the old saying goes: Nero fiddled while Rome burned.

I just hope that does not apply to our great province.

One of the biggest issues - problems we as hunters have is that we cant get along. Every club - member has there own little agenda . Just go to any regulation- allocations meeting and you will see it first hand . Until we as hunters- sportsman can get our shit together were just pissing into the wind .

[Mulehahn]

My biggest problem is that the ones in the city, in the metropolitan areas do not think they are consumptive users. Go to any provincial park where hunting is banned but mountain biking, off trail hiking and camping is common, or where back country skiing or heli skiing is common. The amount of habitat destruction is much more rampant and disgusting than any of my hunting areas. One need to look no further than the C/V coming areas to find huge areas covered in garbage and fecal matter. It isn't the hunters that are doing that.

[xlcc]

Just like the ban on grizzly hunting in BC.That was done for political reasons,not the scientific facts that were presented.Just lip service and to please the greenies.
The USA has a lot more population than Canada but they manage their wildlife resources.In BC it is gut pile management..Look at all the LEH tags let out.Not for the manageing but the sale of LEH permits to line govt. coffers.
BC could do much better but there has to be proper funding to maintain the resource and keep the politics out and use the science.

[Weatherby Fan]

Just like the ban on grizzly hunting in BC.That was done for political reasons,not the scientific facts that were presented.Just lip service and to please the greenies.
The USA has a lot more population than Canada but they manage their wildlife resources.In BC it is gut pile management..Look at all the LEH tags let out.Not for the manageing but the sale of LEH permits to line govt. coffers.
BC could do much better but there has to be proper funding to maintain the resource and keep the politics out and use the science.

I don’t condone what Horgan did with the Grizzly Bear Hunt.....not one F-ing bit......but I said for years prior that they better make the Hunters take all edible portions of the Grizzly out or you’re just giving the Anti’s ammo, never mind the public’s dim view of Trophy Hunting

I took alot of heat over my position on that very subject.

[LBM]

I don’t condone what Horgan did with the Grizzly Bear Hunt.....not one F-ing bit......but I said for years prior that they better make the Hunters take all edible portions of the Grizzly out or you’re just giving the Anti’s ammo, never mind the public’s dim view of Trophy Hunting

I took alot of heat over my position on that very subject.

Have a read of the article in Hakai magazine, your thoughts may be doing more damage.

[huntingfamily]

Here is link to the article...
https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/t...ty-of-hunting/

[Weatherby Fan]

Have a read of the article in Hakai magazine, your thoughts may be doing more damage.

Yes of course that line of thinking is way off base........