Wildlife: The Grizzly Truth

July-August 1994

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

by Sheila Haniszewska

It is April. It is the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. A mother grizzly and her two cubs emerge from their den. Winter den. Birth den. Place of warmth and safety.

But these grizzlies do not move out into safety. In this remote and wild place, the waiting poachers shoot at them from hovering helicopters. Men kill the mother for her body parts. For trophies. For the "medicinal remedies" derived from her organs.

It is April. It is a rugged BC valley. Remote. The wilderness where the Great Bear walks. Mother grizzly leads her babies into the sweet new world. They ramble through the snow melt, the green things budding. The hunters who have been waiting by the carefully placed bait kill the mother for her body parts.For trophies. For the "medicinal remedies" derived from her organs. The babies are orphaned. They die slowly and in terror.

Did you know that the grizzly faces grave dangers in British Columbia? Human expansion into remote areas for resource extraction and settlement is degrading and fragmenting the lands of the Grizzly Nation. Trophy hunting and poaching destroy bears so that people can display mounted heads, wear claw necklaces, drink paw soup, and imagine they are amplifying their virility.

Hunters from all over North America and overseas visit isolated lodges where guide/outfitters assist their quest for the Great Bear. There is an international traffic in bear parts, primarily an Asian market, where grizzly and black bear gall bladders are used for a variety of "medicine". Genitals, paws and bones are traditionally considered to be aphrodisiacs there.

In 1991, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) listed the grizzly as vulnerable and the plains grizzly as extirpated. Grizzlies are the slowest reproducing large carnivore in North America. Females reach sexual maturity at 5-9 years of age and breed only every 3-5 years thereafter. Cub mortality is high. And yet grizzly hunting is legal in BC, Alberta, the Yukon, North West Territories, and Alaska.

Despite years of documented overhunting, our Wildlife Branch continues to allow 6-13% of the BC grizzly population to be legally killed each year. Because grizzly hunting is legal, it is easier for poachers to disguise their illegal take. Indeed, poaching across BC is calculated at 82% of hunting kills. But no one knows for sure what is going on in the woods and valleys of British Columbia. Only that innocent grizzlies, symbols of the wilderness, are being slaughtered for vain human purposes.

It has been said that if a place is not home to the Great Bear, it is not wilderness. Living far from wild places, we tend to believe that wilderness, in all its vastness and fearsome splendour, will continue forever. Not so, if the grizzly is removed from it.

If you wish to help the Great Bear, contact "The Grizzly Project", a Nelson-based society which seeks to foster meaningful public involvement in grizzly bear and ecosystem management in British Columbia, write PO Box 957, Nelson, BC, V1L 6A5 or call (604) 354-1141. You could also write your elected officials demanding an immediate halt to the hunting of grizzly bears in your area. o

Sheila Haniszewska is a teacher and spokesperson for "The Grizzly Project" on Gabriola Island: 247-8482.