North Shore News,

Dear Editor,

I was appalled to read in the May 27 edition of the North Shore News that a grey wolf at Grouse Mountain resort was killed last Tuesday by a grizzly bear in captivity.
I have been up to Grouse many times since the grizzly bears were introduced to their enclosure, and have seen the wolves as well in a separate fenced enclosure, but had no idea that there was a plan to put the two species together.

A couple of years ago, I witnessed a bird show at Grouse Mountain resort. After seeing a bald eagle tied to a short length of rope and surrounded by tourists and blaring rock music right next to the grizzly bear habitat, I wrote to Grouse resort asking how they could call the area a Refuge for Endangered Wildlife. This recent decision to mix species in a confined habitat is even more disturbing.

As a commercial venture, the primary goal of Grouse Mountain resort is of course to make money. The Stanley Park zoo was closed in 1997 ago due to public outcry, and there continues to be controversy over maintaining mammals in captivity at the Vancouver Aquarium, but at the same time, Grouse Mountain resort, a prime tourist BC destination, remains free to run what is in effect a zoo, with seemingly little government regulation of their wildlife activities.

An experimental program placing two predatory species in the same physical space in "an attempt to mimic natural surroundings" appears to be misguided at best. The description of the program on the Grouse Mountain website as a "wilderness sanctuary where endangered animals can play, protected and secure" is a cruel irony given what has occurred.

As the grizzlies have been on the mountain since they were young orphaned cubs, it is hard to understand why Grouse would choose now to introduce a wolf into their habitat, and perhaps unsurprising that the animal was killed
just a few days later. It must have been horrifying to witness the needless death of the grey wolf over a "prized possession," a cow's leg bone. If the animals are unpredictable, as Grouse Mountain resort spokesperson
acknowledged in the article, it seems like a very odd experiment.

Given this disturbing incident, I hope that the provincial government will think seriously about its decision announced in April to use $400,000 of BC taxpayer monies for a black bear rehabilitation scheme in partnership with
Grouse Mountain resort, as reported in the North Shore Outlook.

Sincerely,

Rosemary Gretton