Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Cheeky the bear
Cheeky the bear. Courtesy: bearsforever.ca
Cheeky the bear. Courtesy: bearsforever.ca

Shame on the trophy hunters: a grizzly bear is worth more alive than dead

This article is more than 10 years old
Shooting the threatened species for sport is not only cruel – it's scientifically, economically and environmentally damaging

Robert Johnson and his brother, members of the Heiltsuk First Nation, nicknamed the grizzly bear "Cheeky". The brothers were working as field technicians in a coastal estuary, flanked by cascading slopes of cedar, spruce and hemlock, in the region of northwestern British Columbia known as the Great Bear Rainforest. The grizzly, a young male, earned his name from his behavior: following his friends through the long grass from a distance, occasionally poking his head up through the grass, or sticking out his tongue.

The brothers were in the estuary with Cheeky when a posse of big-game trophy hunters arrived and shot him. The first two shots took the bear down. A third one killed him. The shooter, Clayton Stoner, a professional hockey player who plays for Minnesota, skinned Cheeky and took the hide. He hacked off the bear's head and paws. He left the rest of Cheeky's carcass in the estuary to rot.

British Columbia is again debating the trophy grizzly bear hunt. In November, the province's Liberal government announced plans to expand the areas open to trophy hunting. One of the areas that they propose to open up is the province's Kootenay region, which lies alongside the American states of Washington, Idaho and Montana. Grizzlies are listed as "threatened" under the American Endangered Species Act, and they're protected in the lower 48 states. (Bears, unfortunately, do not recognize international borders).

Last weekend, hundreds of protestors gathered in front of the legislature in the provincial capital of Victoria, demanding that the government enact a permanent province-wide ban on the trophy hunting of bears.

A moratorium on the grizzly bear hunt was enacted 13 years ago this month. But that ban lasted long enough only to affect that spring's hunt. Within months, a newly elected Liberal government overturned it and re-instated the grizzly hunt. Since 2001, trophy hunters have killed an average of 253 grizzlies (pdf) each year.

And that's just the grizzlies. Hundreds of black bears are killed "for sport" annually, too. And they shouldn't be.

Andrew Weaver, BC's first and only elected MLA from BC's Green Party, is using his role in opposition to push the current Liberal majority government toward a permanent ban on the trophy hunt. Weaver, also a climate scientist at the University of Victoria, worries far more about long-term trends and impact on future generations than the average politician who works around a four-year electoral cycle.

Weaver emphasizes that the movement to ban the grizzly hunt is only about trophy hunting, and not about hunting in general. "I don't even like to call it a 'hunt,'" he explains. "It mixes things up with the hunters who hunt for food. I call it trophy killing."

A poll released last summer by McAllister Opinion Research (pdf) revealed that nearly 80% of British Columbians oppose the trophy hunt for grizzlies. The animal is symbolic of BC, a province that has invested heavily in branding itself as "super, natural" and "the best place to live." But arguments to stop the trophy hunt go far beyond the emotional or symbolic – there are scientific and economic reasons to keep the grizzlies alive as well.

A study published last month by the Washington DC-based Center for Responsible Travel (pdf), CREST, which focused on the Great Bear Rainforest, showed that bear-watching eco-tours generated over 12 times as much revenue as trophy hunting, and provided nearly 50 times as many jobs as hunting. Bear-watching companies reported over 11,000 visitors in 2012 (certainly an underestimate, since half of the companies surveyed did not respond). In contrast, the grizzly bear hunt that year brought in 186 hunters, only 74 of them from outside BC. (Provincial regulations require that "non-resident" hunters hunt with a guide).

Weaver explains why the two industries cannot exist alongside:

You can't have guided eco-tours as well as people shooting. With bear-watching tours, the bears get used to people being around. They get habituated. And then, what, they get shot?

According to the CREST report, bear-watching is a growing industry; guided bear hunting is declining.

Perhaps that decline is an indication of something bigger. Perhaps these "trophy" hunters – or at least some of them – are coming to understand that donning camo gear and paying thousands of dollars so they can point their expensive, high-powered rifles at a large wild animal that has no comprehension of the machine they hold is no kind of sport. Perhaps they are realizing that taking photos like this and this and this does not make you the big strong man.

Maybe change is already coming from within. But until it's complete, let's take action.

And, let's be clear: we're not talking about the 100,000 British Columbians who hunt deer, ducks, and other species for food. We're talking about killing for fun, killing for "sport", killing to boost frail human egos. Even BC's hunters agree. The McAllister survey found that 95% of the hunters they polled oppose hunting unless you are prepared to eat what you kill.

A live bear is much more valuable than a dead bear – in so many ways. Let's ban the trophy bear hunt once and for all.

Most viewed

Most viewed