Three reasons to end the grizzly bear hunt
Will bears become the subject of folk tales in the British Columbia of the future?

Taylor Bachrach
Special to Times Colonist

Thursday, December 16, 2004

A colleague recently told me the French have a folk saying that goes something like, "I know a man who knows a man who has seen a bear."

It seems a bit of an odd saying, unless one puts it in the context of France's native bear population, which last month was reduced for all purposes to zero. Boar hunters in France's mountainous Pyrenees region shot and killed the country's last native female brown bear on Nov. 3.

There is something magical about bears, particularly grizzly bears. Perhaps more than any other animal, grizzlies embody the intangible spirit of wilderness -- the vastness, the wildness, the ancient rhythms of species that have co-evolved over the millennia. It's tough to put into words, but anyone who has seen a bear in the wild knows exactly what it is.

At the same time that grizzly bears are icons of wilderness, they also convey, paradoxically perhaps, a certain humanness (beyond the eerie likeness of a skinned bear to the human form). It's no wonder First Nations people show a special reverence toward grizzly bears, and for many the worlds of bears and humans are inextricably linked.

Here in B.C., we continue to infringe upon grizzly bear habitat with roads, resort developments, and industrial activities such as clear-cut logging. Yet, the most significant threat facing grizzly bears is not among these indirect, insidious threats, but rather the most obvious cause of all -- hunting.

Last year alone, B.C.'s trophy hunt claimed the lives of some 230 grizzly bears. Those are the ones legally killed. It is estimated that at least that many again are shot illegally each year.

Unlike the moose and deer hunted throughout B.C. each fall, the meat from trophy grizzly bears is not taken for food. These bears are shot and skinned on the spot, their heads and paws sawn off and packed home as trophies, their carcasses left in the bush.

Back to France, it's hard not to read the loss as a prescient warning to the New World. Like an older sibling, Europe long ago cleared its forests, dirtied its air and water with industrial pollution. They know a thing or two about environmental issues.

In 2001, the European Union banned the import of bear parts from British Columbia. Now rich Euro hunters whose forefathers killed off Europe's bears can no longer take home souvenirs from their B.C. exploits.

It's as if they're saying, "Take it from us: don't kill your bears."

There has long been an argument that we must end the grizzly hunt for ecological reasons. Grizzlies, which reproduce slowly and require large territories, are an "umbrella" species, the decline of which causes a ripple effect throughout the ecosystem.

Another argument against the grizzly hunt uses the language of dollars and cents. This argument holds that the economics of bear hunting pale in comparison to the money that can be made off live bears through carefully managed commercial bear-viewing activities.

There is, however, a third compelling argument upon which we cannot place a dollar value. This argument is a moral one: The argument that we should end the grizzly hunt because it is simply wrong to kill one of our most culturally cherished species for fun and profit. The argument that grizzlies have intrinsic worth, distinct from their ecological role or economic contribution. The argument that our children have a right to witness the magic of seeing a bear in the wild.

This last argument has received little attention in the ongoing debate surrounding B.C.'s grizzly bear hunt. As a culture, we have placed so much emphasis on science, on the utilitarian role of nature, that the spiritual, moral side of the issue has been sadly diminished.

The time has come to bring the morality of killing grizzly bears into the debate and give it a prominent place. As a progressive society, let's say loudly and clearly that we don't need scientific facts or economic rationale to protect our grizzly bears -- that morality alone is reason enough. Let's learn from the French who have killed all their bears and relegated them to folk sayings.

Then, when I am 75 or 80, I can hear my grandchild whisper in my ear:

"I saw a bear."

Taylor Bachrach is communications director at Sierra Club of Canada, B.C. Chapter. His first child is due Dec. 29.