Responsible Wildlife Management MUST be backed by Responsible Science derived Data

We must get back to science-based wildlife management and halt BC’s slow-motion natural catastrophe here in the Kootenays as well as the rest of BC, something the East Kootenay Wildlife Association has been striving for a number of years.

Many of our iconic wildlife species are in decline, best exemplified by the progressive extinction of the mountain caribou herds of the southern Kootenays. Record low populations of mule deer, elk, and bighorn sheep in the Kootenays are lined up like dominos waiting to fall into the same abyss.

We are witnessing a slow-motion natural catastrophe, made worse by the provincial government’s steadfast refusal to make wildlife management decisions that are backed by science. Elected officials drag their feet to implement Stewardship Plans and opt for Limited Entry Hunting of many species with no science-based data to support this decision and no evidence that this action will address the declines.

The provincial government is failing to properly manage wildlife through science. Many wildlife populations in B.C., once healthy and growing, are now unhealthy. Politicians are making cougar decisions without cougar data, moose decisions without moose data, and sheep decisions without sheep data. 

In the absence of data, in the absence of evidence, decisions about wildlife allocations and quotas are being driven by politics. The collapse of the Thompson River Steelhead population, Caribou extinction in the southern Selkirk Mountains are sad examples of proper management! With the coming of Chronic Wasting Disease to our ungulates and Whirling Disease in our fishery what political wisdom do we now face here in the Kootenays?

In 2020, the provincial government’s Together for Wildlife strategy promised to implement evidence-based decisions, supported by research and monitoring. That science-based approach has been guided by wildlife inventory in accordance with the Provincial Framework for Moose Management in B.C. But after creating this framework, the government has apparently abandoned it. This is unreasonable and ill-advised.

Management decisions are being used as sweeteners in reconciliation negotiations and garner votes within the urban population. Proposals to change the Hunting and Trapping Regulation will further erode hunter access and days on the land without scientific rationale. Unabated access to the alpine and fragile ecosystems continues with little to no enforcement in current restricted areas and the continued eroding of the experience nature brings in these areas.

The government admits there is no scientific basis for many of the new restrictions, nor any science-based plan. The sooner all British Columbians return to the table for good-faith negotiations, buttressed by thorough wildlife counts, the faster we can move toward a future of shared abundance.

Ask questions of your candidates and demand answers.