Letter to the Editor

On Friday, May 13, we experienced a grizzly bear attack on our farm, which is located only 4.5 km  from town, Cranbrook.

We found seven of our 12 pigs gone and the remaining five huddled in the corner of a ram shackled building, which used to house all 12 of them.  We were able to locate five of them, one km from home in the forest,  and return them to our farm and so we experienced a loss of two pigs.

We have been farming on this location for the past 20 years and have not experienced anything like this before.

We are writing this letter to express our views about current existing laws regarding the hunt of grizzlies in British Columbia.

The B.C. government banned all hunting of grizzly bears in the province, whether for trophies or for meat, on December 18, 2017, which was effective immediately. This law is now having effects on the valleys in our region as larger grizzlies are still in the higher altitudes maintaining their territories but younger grizzlies come down lower to find new territories.

This is very dangerous now for all of us who live our day-to-day lives in the lower territory.

Over the past 20 years we have never experienced a ‘grizzly assault’ on our property.  Since this incident occurred, we have had many discussions with neighbours and have discovered that many have experienced similar events over the past couple of years since the government changed the laws around the grizzly hunt.  This proves the above stated effects of grizzlies not being hunted in our province.

Our loss was sufficient but nowhere near as incredible of a loss than if this would have been an attack on human life.  We live in a very populated human area and as mentioned earlier only 4.5 km from town.  These hungry grizzly bears are dangerous and unpredictable and cannot be trapped, removed or relocated easily.

We really appreciated the help of our local wildlife conservation team. The Conservation Officer placed a trapping device in our yard but was unsuccessful in capturing it, therefore it is still at large in our area.

We know that the B.C. government claimed to have made this decision because “the grizzly hunt is not in line with their values” (quoted by Minister Doug Donaldson- Jan.12, 2020). Our question is why does the government not value those of us living in the region below that is now affected by the grizzly hunt being banned?

And also, why does the government discriminate against the hunting of grizzlies when the hunting of black bears is still allowed.  There seems to exist a discrepancy with this decision and ruling and now we’re living with the consequences.

In the light of this, these laws need to be revisited and reviewed.  As citizens of this constituency along with many others actively living and recreating in these parts, we are asking our government for this and asking them to ‘value’ our lives here.

Our question is:  When is our government going to look at this seriously? Will it be before there is more loss and possibly loss of human life in the lower areas where people are living?  Hiking and hunting in the high mountains is always a risk to encounter a grizzly, but why should those of us living in the valleys and in nearby towns be threatened with the possibility of encountering grizzlies.

Clayton Augustine,

Cranbrook

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