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| 12. Novermber 2015 |
| Stephen Hume nennt Fakten, welche die scheinheiligen Argumente der Trophäenjagd-Befürworter widerlegen |
Die Trophäenjagd auf Grizzlybären in BC stand wohl noch nie so sehr in der öffentlichen Kritik wie in der jetzt am 15. November zu Ende gehenden Herbstjagdsaison. Die Argumente der Trophäenjagd-Befürworter werden deshalb immer fragwürdiger, manche dieser scheinheiligen Argumente erweisen sich als falsch, werden jedoch weiter gestreut, um die Provinzregierung von einem längst überfälligen Verbot der Trophäenjagd abzuhalten.
In seinem Artikel “Trophy hunting justifications just don’t add up” zerpflückt Stephen Hume in der Vancouver Sun vom 15. Oktober einige der falschen Behauptungen der Trophäenjagd-Lobby in BC. Der Artikel ist nachfolgend für Sie wiedergegeben:
„Stephen Hume: Trophy hunting justifications just don’t add up Columnist takes on rationalizations for continuing grizzly hunt
A deluge of mail followed last week’s column about provincially sanctioned trophy hunting of grizzly bears by a few people with enough money to kill the big carnivores just for the fun of it. Because that’s all trophy hunting grizzlies represents. The meat isn’t consumed, the hides aren’t used for anything except as mementoes to inflate the self-esteem of the killers, and the trophy hunt contributes a pittance to the provincial revenues compared to the take from bear watching. Every bear killed is merely a vanity project for some egomaniac.
The mail reflected the polling — better than 90 per cent of it expressed disgust and dismay at a provincial government which is almost gleeful in defying the wishes of the vast majority of its citizens and more or less mocks them as bleeding-heart idiots. For example, some residents of Osoyoos wrote complaining of a large billboard on provincial land along Highway 97 listing animals and seasons in which they can be shot.
A few letters did support trophy hunting. One advocated hunting grizzlies ‘so they are afraid of man’ because of the threat they purportedly pose to people, particularly hunters. According to bear scientists at the University of Calgary, over the 37 years from 1960 to 1997 there were 49 grizzly attacks upon humans in B.C. Almost 75 per cent involved female bears. Most occurred in midsummer when cubs are small. Eight proved fatal. The victims were mostly hikers, not hunters. Include all Canada and the U.S. and a total of 51 people have been killed in grizzly bear attacks since 1950. By comparison, since 1960 more than 800 people have been killed by domestic dogs. And according to statistics compiled by the International Hunter Education Association, a group advocating firearms training for hunters and others, about 1,000 people a year are accidentally shot by hunters and about 100 killed. So you are far more likely to be killed by your neighbour’s dog or accidentally shot by your hunting companion than you are to be killed by a grizzly.
A letter from the B.C. Wildlife Federation argues that ‘cropping surplus grizzlies’ through trophy hunting is good because the revenue it raises can go to preserving grizzly habitat. Except that budget cuts caused a 58-per-cent reduction in environmental protection. Last year, parks legislation was altered to permit industrial access for ‘research’ including logging roads, pipelines and resource extraction. This year reports warned chronic understaffing of the B.C. Conservation Officer service resulted in unsafe working conditions.
Revenue raised from trophy hunting is between $414,000 and $500,000, a year according to the minister. This is 2.5 per cent of revenue raised from all hunting licences. It’s 0.001 per cent of provincial revenue. It is 0.06 per cent of the revenue B.C. raises from forest resources. Total revenue from the trophy hunt is equivalent in value to about 50 truckloads of logs. In other words, it’s such a minuscule contribution to provincial revenue compared to the return from logging that it is utterly irrelevant as a factor in protecting bear habitat. But bear viewing, says one economic analysis, contributed about $9.5 million to provincial GDP in 2012.
According to a 2013 paper on B.C.’s grizzly management, ‘hunting mortality, especially in females, was often higher than targeted ... female mortality consistently exceeded the 30 per cent threshold dictated by government.’ It warned that when road kills, animal control kills and poaching are factored in, the existing management approach risks ‘chronic and repeated overmortality events’ and that the best way to reduce the probability of over-exploitation is to reduce or eliminate trophy hunting.
I talked to Faisal Moola, who teaches wildlife management at the University of Toronto and also works on wildlife issues for the David Suzuki Foundation. He published research in 2011 showing that even provincial parks offer grizzlies little protection from trophy hunters. When Moola correlated documented kills with park boundaries he found that between 1973 and 2008, trophy hunters killed 387 grizzlies inside provincial parks and ‘the situation is much worse now. I can tell you that this approach to managing large carnivores went out with big-finned cars, Brylcreem and three gin and tonics before lunch,’ he said of the ‘cropping surplus grizzlies’ model.
Indeed. And the more you look at it, the more disreputable the rationalizations for trophy hunting appear.”
© Copyright (c) Stephen Hume, The Vancouver Sun
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