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The bear facts
May 3, 1998
Reprinted without permission from The Toronto sun
The annual black bear season attracts hunting enthusiasts and outrage
from opponents
By TIM FITZGERALD
Ottawa
SunLAKEFIELD -- In what would be an otherwise pristine
forest, garbage is strewn about on the ground.
Puffy clouds roll
across the sky and when the wind shifts ever-so-slightly, the smell of
rotting# meat takes your breath away.
Hanging from a tree there's
a plastic bag containing remnants of old doughnuts and decaying meat.
In a small opening in the middle of the woods sits a rusty metal
barrel full of discarded fat and bones deemed useless by butchers. But for
hunters looking for black bears, the barrel is as valuable a piece of
equipment as the arrows or bullets they use to pierce a bear's lungs. The
top of the barrel is covered with logs and rocks, too heavy to have been
placed there by one person. A hole in the side of the barrel allows the
retched stench to escape.
On this cloudy spring day, the sun isn't
the only thing hiding.
Camouflaged high in a tree, Eric Austin
quietly holds his bow in hand, arrow poised. He's waiting for his prey to
make a fatal error -- to accept a free meal. For the hungry victim of this
spring ritual, this meal will cost it its life.
Austin, an avid
bear hunter, is involved in the controversial hunt for many reasons.
"I enjoy the sport," he says. "I enjoy the challenge of the hunt
and being outdoors. Last, but not least, I enjoy the meat."
* * *
The spring bear hunt is big business in
Ontario. Fishing and hunting is a $5-billion-a-year industry in the
province, with the bear hunt fetching an estimated $40 million in revenue
each year. Most of that money comes from Americans who hunt north of the
border because of laws forbidding the sport in their own country. The bear
hunt brings in big bucks for outfitters and guides in Northern Ontario.
The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, using data gathered
between 1990 and 1996, reports an average of 6,880 bears are "harvested"
annually, about 7% of the approximately 100,000 bears in the province.
There is no limit on the number of licences that can be sold per year, but
a licence entitles hunters to kill only one bear a year.
Regardless of the number killed, protesters question the ethics of
bear hunters who use bait to lure the animals into openings, wait quietly
in a tree and fire arrows or bullets at them from about 20 yards away.
* * *
The campaign to stop the bear hunt by three
of Canada's most vocal animal rights groups is taking aim at putting an
arrow through the heart of the hunt, which runs from April 15 to June 15,
ending it for good.
Rick Smith, Canadian director of the
International Fund for Animal Welfare, questions the necessity of the
hunt.
Bears are the only big game animal allowed to be hunted in
Ontario in the spring, something Smith and the IFAW find reprehensible.
Smith says many people are appalled at the way hunters bait and
kill bears.
"Killing a bear with its head in a trash bin is an
unethical thing to do," says Smith. "We have decided as a society that it
is unethical to hunt animals during the spring. There's no reason why we
can't apply that logic to bears."
Smith attributes the
continuation of the bear hunt on groups like the Ontario Federation of
Anglers and Hunters. The OFAH describes itself as a non-profit
conservation organization with more than 74,000 members. Smith says the
OFAH is out of touch with the people of Ontario.
Then there's the
Animal Alliance of Canada.
Director Liz White says all of the
arguments hunters use to justify baiting bears, like getting a clean hit,
are false.
"The truth of the matter is, it does not prevent
wounding," says White.
Of the more than 8,200 bears killed in
1995, White claims about 1,200 limped away wounded, left to suffer because
of a poor shot.
Esther Kline, a spokeswoman for the Animal Defence
League of Canada, says her group questions the morals and ethics of bear
hunters.
"No matter how you paint the picture, the spring bear
hunt is done for pleasure," Kline says.
She said 80% of the bears
killed each year are shot by Americans, and says this is evidence enough
to prove that hunters are only concerned with trophies, not preservation
of wildlife.
"The fundamental process of killing for pleasure is
wrong," Kline says. "You lure an animal to its death, where's the sport?"
She doesn't buy the argument that stopping the bear hunt would
financially hurt outfitters and guides.
"They'll make more money
if they go into viewing and photography of these animals," Kline says.
She charges that groups like the OFAH are only concerned about
their own interests.
"It's their money that determines the way
they want things run," she says. "It's not for conservation, it's for the
benefit of hunters."
* * *
For every action, there's an equal and
opposite reaction.
The OFAH sees activist groups as little more
than an annoyance.
Mark Holmes, communications specialist for the
OFAH, says groups like the IFAW use "emotional hand-wringing" to get their
point across.
"What these people come out and say is their own
version of the truth," Holmes says.
He points out that hunters do
more than twiddle their thumbs while waiting for a bear to show up.
Hunters examine the area they plan to set up in and look for signs
like footprints around the bait, indicating whether a bear has cubs or
not.
He says hunters aren't the slack-jawed yokels animal rights
activist groups portray them as. They are usually responsible and
concerned with the preservation of wildlife, according to Holmes.
"When you bait a bear, the kill is going to be quick, clean and
the hunter can determine what the sex is," he says.
The OFAH
believes it would be irresponsible and the consequences severe if the bear
population wasn't managed properly. Holmes says although bear attacks
aren't common, stopping the spring hunt would almost certainly increase
the chances.
"If the government were to ban the bear hunt, those
types of tragic occurrences will increase," Holmes says.
He hopes
people aren't drawn in by what he refers to as a "slick advertising
campaigns" by the IFAW and AAC.
"They distort the facts.
Unbelievably so," he says.
And he says the bear hunt is an
important economic contributor to Northern Ontario.
"These
communities need all the money they can get." Holmes believes the bear
population is sustainable and says it is conservation groups like the
OFAH, not activists, which are responsible for helping design the rules
that regulate hunters.
"It's hunters who lobbied for the Fish and
Game Act," Holmes says. "It's hunters who pay for the licences that fund
wildlife management."
* * *
Baiting bears may sound cruel, but it does
have merit, says Daryl Seip, an area biologist for the Ontario MNR, who
helps keep tabs on the bear population in the Kemptville area.
"It
sounds on the surface to be unethical," Seip says. "But there are factors
that make it acceptable."
Baiting the bears enables hunters to
properly identify the sex of the bear, so they can target males. That way
mother bears do not leave orphaned cups behind.
There are fines in
place for accidentally shooting a female bear with cubs, or a cub, which
can cost a hunter up to $1,000. They can also lose their hunting licence.
* * *
As he comes down from his perch 20 yards
from the bait barrel, Eric Austin says he has little time for the politics
intertwined with bear hunting, which he loves dearly.
An
Aquaculture graduate from Sir Sandford Fleming College. He took up bear
hunting six years ago and to date has killed five bears.
Austin
has a keen eye for his surroundings. He eyes trees looking for bear claw
marks and surveys the ground for paw prints.
The baiting process
is more involved than throwing doughnuts on the ground. Austin says it
takes weeks to establish a bear's eating patterns and even once a pattern
has been established, it is no guarantee you will be able to lure a bear
to the bait. He estimates he's seen at least 35 bears in the wild, most of
which he let go.
"I decide whether I will shoot or not."
Austin says he has a deep respect for wildlife and denies that
he's a trophy hunter. He says his views are simply different from those
who oppose the spring bear hunt.
"I feel very strong about hunting
and my right to hunt."
Austin says people need to understand that
death is a natural part of the life cycle.
"I am a manager of a
natural resource," he says.
Members of animal rights groups should
put down their dinner plates and think about how any meat ends up on their
dinner tables, Austin says. Bear hunting is far more humane than loading
cattle on a truck and sending them to the slaughterhouse, he says. As a
father he takes pride in being able to provide for his family -- whether
it's bear, moose or deer, a kill means a freezer full of meat for his
family.
"Hunting is a Canadian tradition," he says. "It's a way of
life that's been around for generations."
And pushing around others is an American tradition.
-Skuncle
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