Who OK'd killing of golden eagles?

Times Colonist
Monday, March 07, 2005

We need to know what has been the fallout for those Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection personnel who were secretly shooting golden eagles last year.

The news of the bait-killing program to cull golden eagles made front-page headlines across Canada and shocked the world. The eagles were said to be killing Vancouver Island marmots being released from the Marmot Recovery Program's captive breeding laboratories. Weyerhaeuser and TimberWest, on whose private lands the golden eagle culling took place, are the project's major financiers. Marmot biologists working for the program quietly admit that voracious unregulated industrial clearcutting is the primary cause of the extinction.

Would the ministry please answer these following questions:

1. Did the then WLAP Minister Joyce Murray approve the killing of golden eagles?

2. If not, who did? Does the minister now receive such information prior to the event?

3. Has the culling of golden eagles been stopped? If not, how many Golden eagles were shot in the last year?

4. Weyerhaeuser is about to sell off its coastal B.C. assets. Will the giant American logging company continue to finance the recovery of Canada's most endangered species, the Vancouver Island marmot?

Ingmar Lee,

Victoria