I just got this email sent to me by a fellow member of BC wildlife, it is very informative and all true:
Grizzly Bear Fact Sheet
- Grizzly Bear Numbers
The current conservative population estimate is 17,000 grizzly bears in
These figures have been established through extensive inventory work by grizzly bear scientists and researchers in representative areas throughout the province.
Estimating the number of bears in the province is not a simple process. Although they are a large, imposing animal, they are also secretive and often nocturnal and their typical habitat makes sightings difficult or even impossible.
Early estimates of grizzly bear populations were based on reports from the field; loggers, hunters, outfitters and others who inhabited the backcountry. Based on this limited information, biologists were extremely conservative, with their 1979 estimate being 6,000 bears.
In the 1980s studies using emerging technology such as radio-telemetry, capture-recapture and more detailed habitat analysis resulted in the population estimate updated to 13,000 bears province-wide. While developing this estimate, biologists continued to significantly underestimate the carry capacity of the more productive grizzly bear habitats.
Beginning in the 1990s, DNA analysis became a new valuable tool for research biologists and used in conjunction with existing inventory procedures resulted in the grizzly bear population estimates being adjusted once again upwards to the current levels.
It must be noted that the figures used are, and have always been, conservative estimates based on the analysis of the studies done by qualified and experienced researchers.
In the past, anti-hunting and anti-use activists have tried to refute the Ministry of Environment’s population figures, saying that there ‘could be’ as few as 4,000 grizzlies in B.C. But there have been no studies done that would give any credibility to these statements. They have no basis in scientific fact.
Grizzly Bear Reproductive Rates:
One of the arguments that we have heard regarding the sustainability of grizzly bear populations is their low reproductive rates.
While mature females produce cubs only every second or third year, what is not mentioned is that the cubs have a much higher survival rate than the young of most other large mammals. This is partly due to the simple fact that the big bears are at the top of the food chain and have few predatory threats as well as the extreme protective nature of the female grizzly toward her cubs. The key to the reproductive success of grizzly bears populations is that is that grizzly bear females are excellent mothers.
Studies that have been done in British Columbia’s Flathead area as well as in Alaska’s coastal and interior regions have documented that grizzly bear populations are capable of showing a 6% to 8% annual increase or higher. This brings into focus the fact that population growth is reliant on both the birth and death rates of a species.
Grizzly Bear Hunting Statistics:
One of the arguments from groups and individuals whose goal is to completely ban all hunting of grizzly bears in
To understand this issue, you must first be familiar with
Grizzly bear mortalities are analyzed by Ministry of Environment biologists through a detailed procedures manual (http://wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/gb_harvest_mgmt_proc_app1.pdf) that defines what limits must be placed on total human caused mortality of grizzly bears as well as a factor for unknown mortality. These limits vary depending on the assessed quality of the bear habitat in any given Management Unit (MU).
These mortality limits range from a maximum of 5% of the total estimated population in the very best habitat to a low of 3% in the lowest habitat class. Further adjustments are made based on the number of mortalities of female grizzlies in any given Wildlife Management Unit (MU).
Using the current estimated population figure of 17,000 grizzly bears the percentage of grizzly bears killed by all licensed hunters since 2002 is as follows:
2002 1.26% 214
2003 1.35% 229
2004 1.59% 270
2005 1.54% 262
2006 1.46% 248
These figures are indicative of the conservative harvest rates that have been set by the Ministry Environment professional staff considering bear harvest rates could be established as at least two or three times as high.
Facts on Hunting
One of the arguments for removing grizzly bears from the list of huntable wildlife is that this will automatically give them the protection that they need to increase or at least maintain their population numbers. Although this may appear at first hearing to be an unassailable argument, it is not necessarily so.
If grizzly bears are totally protected – in fact if any species is totally protected – it disappears off the radar of public accountability. The bears will cease to have a positive economic value in most jurisdictions. Groups that insist on maintaining an opportunity to harvest the bear are also the groups that are willing to provide funding for research. This will not continue.
Grizzly bears will certainly still have value in areas where commercial bear-viewing operations are in place, but those are mostly in accessible coastal areas where the big bears congregate during salmon runs. In the interior of the province grizzlies are much more secretive, covering relatively large territories and living in heavy cover and are not conducive the commercial viewing operations. In these areas the grizzly will have little to no economic value and will in many situations assume the status of vermin. It will take us back to a time when ranchers encouraged their employees to kill every bear they encountered in their work.
Without hunting, grizzly bears become emboldened and begin not only to interact destructively with property and livestock but also to become a safety hazard for individuals and communities requiring expensive control measures which result in wasteful agency-caused bear deaths.
It is worth noting that in National Parks where grizzly bears, along with all other species, have complete protection and have lost their wariness and have become habituated to human settlement, grizzly bear populations have significantly lower survival rates compared to bears outside of the parks’ boundaries. This is also true of the areas in the
General:
The guiding rule of wildlife management in
This is not what the people who are calling for the end to
They know that they would be unsuccessful were they to attack hunting in general and instead have tried to pick battlegrounds where they hope they can generate some emotional appeal with the general public.
In the late 1990s led by one specific anti hunting group, many in the environmental community supported a major effort to ban all bear hunting, including the hunt for black bears. They were successful in having the government of the day impose a grizzly bear hunting moratorium until a newly elected provincial government reexamined their arguments in the light of the existing biological science and found their claims unfounded. This ill advised initiative collapsed on them because they could not convince British Columbians that bears – both black and grizzly – were at risk of being exterminated by legal hunting seasons.
They have now regrouped and refocused their new initiative on stopping the grizzly bear hunt in B.C. and see the upcoming Winter Olympics as an opportunity to blackmail the Provincial government into acquiescing to their demands.
If we give in to this initiative regarding grizzly bears, their demands will not stop there. They will then move on to the next step in their agenda, which is to stop or at least limit all resource use in this province.
With over 13% of the province in protected areas and more than 90 percent of it unsuitable for permanent human settlement, grizzly bears area in a secure position to survive long into the future with hunting being an integral and important part of their conservation and management.
John B Holdstock
Kelowna, BC
jbholdstock@shawcable.com
https://totalrecoil.wordpress.com/
http://www.bcwf.bc.ca/
http://www.bccf.com/
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Thank you very much John for putting together this great resource sheet, I hope everyone will take time to write their local MLA, or other political leader and discuss the facts of grizzly bear hunting, not the emotion of a fuzzy animal being killed.