Canada: Even in PAs, BC's grizzlies are vulnerable to trophy hunters, study says
British Columbia's parks and protected areas are graveyards for grizzly bears being shot by trophy hunters, the David Suzuki Foundation said Thursday after analysing wildlife mortality records obtained from the provincial government.
Faisal Moola, the Vancouver-based foundation's director of terrestrial conservation and science, said the finding is based on a review of 10,811 grizzlies killed by humans from 1977 to 2009 in B.C.
Of those, almost 90 per cent were legally killed by trophy hunters, many of them Americans with guide-outfitters, and the rest by various means, including road- and rail-kills, poaching, trapping, and shooting the bears for posing a threat or nuisance.
Not just grizzlies, but a wide range of big-game animals are legally hunted in B.C.'s larger wilderness parks.
The records, which show the location of kills to within a one-kilometre square grid, were released to environmental groups after a request to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.