Alone, inexperienced, and…

Alone, inexperienced, and afraid, without a mother to protect, teach, and guide him/her, s/he has no chance to survive, never mind to thrive.
Only humans can show such lack of compassion for no reason except greed or barbarism. Is this what the Ontario government thinks Ontario’s citizens are?

This letter opposes the proposals presented in ERO 019-1112 to expand and make permanent the spring bear hunting season. It closes with an appendix. If you do choose to ignore all the legitimate concerns expressed below, and their consequences to both people and wildlife, you can at the very least consider the suggested changes listed in this appendix.

FINANCIAL GAIN OVER HUMAN COMPASSION; POLITICAL GAIN AND LOSS

We believe that these changes have been proposed to align the MNRF with the wishes of those who hunt bears, causing the bear population untold, and horrendous pain, loss, and horrible, unconscionable deaths of young male and female bears and their almost infant offspring. The sole purpose of this action by your Government is to increase revenues, while the costs to our wildlife will be beyond the scope of conscience and ethics. This Government, and the MNRF will be held accountable.

Mr. Ford, your own Party cancelled the spring bear hunt because, in the words of John Snobelen, “…to move to end the spring bear hunt because (our government) will not tolerate cubs being orphaned by hunters mistakenly shooting mother bears in the spring.” (January 15, 1999)

This Government would be replaced today if an election were held. You should know that your lack of compassion toward our wildlife only deepens our resolve. Action such as is proposed here enrages voters in ridings you will need if you want to form the government again.

And you must be aware that hunters have an insatiable appetite for more and more. They are never satisfied. Kathleen Wynne reinstated this hunt in hopes it would influence rural ridings. This did not save her career or her government, and I will be reminding all those around me of actions such as this when the next election rolls around, unless you make a better choice and cancel this plan.

The rationale that more revenue will flow into Ontario as rich Americans, Europeans, and Asian hunters will be allowed to kill our bears both in the spring and fall. What chance do our baby bears have in the face of your cruelty and greed?

CRUEL AND INHUMANE ORPHANING

The spring bear hunt is a cruel, unmeasurable and unscientific abuse of animals. It orphans cubs by the hundreds, and leaves them alone to die from starvation, thirst, climate, or predation. Further, the deaths may be tortured over weeks and months, over the first year or more. Starvation is a horrible, cruel death, and the terror the little cubs must experience, being left alone in the world without the mother which nature shows they need for the first year and a half of their lives must be absolutely unbearable. Although illegal, we know from past experiences that some mother bears will be shot, especially since you are also encouraging hunter tourists from regions lacking bears, and thus unfamiliar with their habits (such as mother bears hiding their infants in the trees before foraging to keep them safe from male bears). This exposes all bears to the dangers of kill-motivated, uninformed persons, left unsupervised in the wild with their deadly weapons.

Further, the MNR (EBR RB9E600l) cancelled the spring bear hunt in l999 because of the need for lactating mothers to remain with their young. This Ministry has gone backwards in its ethics.

Further, it states that “…the size of the bear population does not guarantee that female bears with young cubs are not mistakenly shot during a spring bear hunt.” It is beyond ridiculous to suggest that a hunter in a tree blind can determine, with any degree of certainty, a nursing female. And in the fall, how would a hunter know if there was a juvenile nearby, still in need of his/her mother? Not seeing the cubs does not mean that there are no cubs with that mother. And enforcement is not possible unless every hunter is accompanied by MNRF staffer who maintains a balanced view of conservation over the need to shoot first, look later. Add to this the encouragement of foreign hunters who lack awareness of babies hidden in trees, or juveniles who are not far off and still in need of their mothers, and you have a personal disaster, for each bear, in the making.

The practice of killing female adult bears is damaging enough in regards to the fall bear hunt, a hunt which was extended when the spring bear hunt was cancelled and has never been, but should have been, shortened again when the spring hunt resumed. The fact that bear cubs naturally remain with their mothers until they are a year and a half old shows that young bears do not have the knowledge or skills, even if they have enough fatty tissue to survive the winter, t survive on their own until they are a year and a half old. They need to learn what to eat, where and how to get food across the seasons, on land and in water. They need to learn where the species they can eat may hide, and who their enemies are. They need protection from other predatory species and male adults. And some are still being fed in the fall because the female adults being shot are often still lactating. So it is clear that juvenile bears need their mothers in the fall. Yet, during both spring and fall, females are dying, and no doubt, orphans are dying, too, and these are unnecessary as well as cruel deaths for the very young.
In the world of spring bear hunt, there is no protection for any bears. To an infant bear, or to a juvenile, the only “population” s/he is interested in is her/his mother. Your own research, published in l996, showed that 70% of cubs orphaned during spring seasons died in the three wildlife areas studied before their first birthday, and that the cubs had been left to die of thirst, exposure, starvation, and /or predation. It is likely that juveniles often suffer the same fate.

So just how long there will be a healthy and sustainable bear population when mothers are being killed and infants and juveniles are left to die is being disregarded by this Ministry. It is a travesty of irresponsibility and a betrayal to our citizenry.

ONTARIANS APPRECIATE AND WISH TO PROTECT OUR WILDLIFE

In reality, the vast majority of Ontarians have developed a deep appreciation for, and desire to protect, our wildlife, and do not see sentient beings of any species as objects to be brutalized. We also want our public lands to be free of human violence. These ethics are unequivocally clear whenever human-wildlife conflicts occur in human-populated areas, and can be further documented by wildlife rehabilitators whenever injured or orphaned wildlife are discovered.

This Ministry appears to hide behind its premise that it is illegal to “harvest” (kill) bear cubs and female bears with cubs. Unfortunately, it has no teeth since, whether it is legal or not, it happened to a full third of the hunters’ watch, and since hunters are trusted to self-report, the number is very probably much, much higher. History shows that either the hunters cannot differentiate between males and females, or they don’t care. As for the fine involved in killing a female with cubs, it is lacking in intelligence to believe that any hunter would self-report and subject him/herself to the $25,000 fine and jail time. So, with the serious lack of enforcement, who is going to charge the lawbreaker? Without a massive hiring of MNRF conservation officers to accompany these hunters, enforcement is not possible.

MINISTRY STUDY PROJECTS AND FINDINGS

You have created this ERO before publishing the results of the two past “studies”, which, I understand, have only been submitted by 39% of the hunters, so the results would not hold any legitimate conclusions anyway.

Furthermore, assessments done by the MNRF`s scientists years ago to examine the issue of human-wildlife conflicts have shown that the spring bear hunt results in a dramatic increase in human-wildlife conflicts, largely due to starvation.

To add insult to injury, this proposal only requires one report by hunters for the year, which means that there will no longer even be an effort to determine the spring seasonal record.

We do know that the Bear-Wise program, weakened and then cancelled, had a very positive effect on both the communities where it was implemented, and the people and bear populations surrounding them. This success clearly points to a reinstatement and deep funding of this program to allow people and wildlife to live in harmony.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ECOLOGICAL STRESSES

This proposal ignores the impacts of other current stresses on bears. Hot, dry summers caused by climate change (lack of food such as berries, etc.), additional proposals to encourage logging and release from strict monitoring and ecological impact proposals which will result in habitat loss, and your government’s current direction at removing any constraints on big business to destroy natural habitats, exponentially increase massive stresses to the bears already being increasingly attacked by humanity.

DISTINGUISHING MOTHER BEARS AND JUVENILE MALES IS IMPOSSIBLE

Understanding bear behaviour confirms that mother bears will not approach baited areas with their young because they are leary of other bears being in the vicinity. Instead, out of sight and high in trees, they leave their little ones alone to search out the site and the food on their own. Therefore, there is no way of being assured that the bear before the bait is not a mother.

Second, male and female bears in the spring are both small and thin. It is very challenging to discern any difference from a hunter`s stand. Therefore, the submitting of teeth to discern how many females were killed was very important, and should have been required. It was not. This fact demonstrates that your Ministry is not interested in seeing the true cost to our bears, and to future generations, of this hunt.

BAITING

Food baits at their core are an ethical issue which reeks of barbarian tactics. Hunters bait bears at their most vulnerable, while they are starving and desperate, including mothers feeding babies at a time when there is very little food available naturally. Setting up feeding stations, then sitting in tree tents and killing whatever bear approaches, means that many, many mothers and juveniles will die, and their babies will be left to die as well. Looking from above, how would they know if the bear was lactating or not? How would they know if she had a juvenile nearby, or babies?

The use of baiting is more likely to create human-wildlife conflicts than any other single thing hunters could do, and to do this when, especially feeding mothers, are starving after the long, brutal winters we now experience is a travesty. Further, this form of `hunting` is anything but sport. There is no sport in sitting in a raised tent, or behind a large baited tree and shooting a starving bear who approaches. It is anything but sport, and can be likened to the shooting of a person standing beside a symbolic monument. Neither are deserved. Neither are conscionable.

The lack of discrimination among hunters was clear in the first two years’ study findings, which were, in part, published. Fully a third of the bears killed in those years were females. Who knows how many orphans there were, and this just represents the number we know about!

LACK OF MONITORING

When the second “study” period was approved, the MNRF could not possibly have known how many bears, or what type, had been killed since it hadn’t even received 50% of the reports from licenced hunters! Setting maximum numbers without having the statistics of what has already been done was ridiculous, and demonstrated that this Province does not want or value scientific decision-making.

This continues in the current ERO, since there has been no provision for additional Ministry enforcement capability through funding, infrastructure and boots-on-the-ground hires of conservation officers has not been planned in this ERO plan.

BEAR-WISE PROGRAM

Communities should know that the cost benefits of this additional licensing are inaccurate, since the costs of dealing with wildlife conflicts in communities has been downloaded to them, without provision of any humane management strategies or materials. This decries any intent of public safety being put forward by the Ministry.

The Bear-Wise Program, which should be being funded and extended, was proven to work in the communities where it was properly funded and implemented. Black bears are naturally shy and suspicious of humanity, and this program used the best practices available to prevent human-wildlife conflicts.

We request that this proposal be cancelled immediately, that an independent panel of scientists follow through on the two past spring bear hunt programs’ effectiveness, and that the Bear-Wise Program be reinstated, and properly funded to protect any citizens of Ontario who may be considered at-risk.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES “NEUTRAL”

This suggestion ignores the impact on both the living animals affected by the spring bear hunt, and costs to our future bear populations, since your statistics, monitoring and ongoing research are being thwarted by the changes to your licensing plan. The costs of terror, suffering, injury, orphaning, starvation, and predation are not neutral. We have a moral and ethical responsibility to be caring stewards of our wilderness cohabitants, a responsibility your proposal does not even consider, but most Ontarians do.

ECOTOURISM REPLACING CONSUMPTION ACTIVITIES

Premier Ford, if you wish to have your Party re-elected, and to meet the real needs and wishes of the vast majority of Ontarians, then we appeal to you to show some leadership by stopping the obvious war on wildlife put forward by this out-of-date Ministry, replace this Minister or give him ethical marching orders, and invite ecological tourism to replace he destruction of ou r wildlife as a matter of course in Ontario.

21st Century Ontarians, and in fact 21st Century world citizens, value and recognize the need for predatory species in our environment, and appreciate all animals for their beauty, uniqueness, sentience, and intelligence. Those who live with wilderness dwellers could find new and wonderful insights by sharing the beauty of their ecologies with tourists who carry cameras instead of guns.

Most of all, what a tremendously powerful image of Ontarians would come from developing ecological tourism and employment, rather than consumptive tourism and employment which continues to compromise our wilderness and results in terror, suffering and death for so many innocent animals.

This more powerful, ethical image of Ontario will only come if you change the current, scientifically-unsupportable, cruel and ecologically dangerous policies and direction your government is taking on behalf a very small minority.

Listen, please, to the voices of the vast majority of us who, in fact, elected you and your Government, trusting you to be both scientifically and ethically moral.

You could begin this transformation with a clear sign of this more appropriate and democratic direction, as well as in the name of humane ethics, by cancelling the spring bear hunt, and setting your sights on international ecotourism.

Mr. Ford and MNRF, it is self-evident that a modern province can develop a better tourism plan than inviting non-resident sport hunters, regional and international, to who enjoy killing wildlife, animals who have little hope of escape, onto our mutually owned public lands. Ontario’s forests, and its wildlife, belongs to all of us, not just to the businesses that profit from violence against wild animals.

Please return our public lands to our wildlife, as they should be, and begin to build Ontario’s reputation as an ethical, humane province, the same as the majority of its people are.

APPENDIX
SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT OF PROPOSAL IF YOU INSIST ON APPROVING IT…
1. Spring bear hunt should last no more than 30 days, June 1-30 so that females with cubs, and the cubs themselves, will be protected.

2. Baiting must stop after June 30th and not begin again until September 1st. Baiting should be at least 2 km from the nearest residence or residential area and garbage must be cleared after the hunt.

3. Fall hunt should begin September 15th and end October 30th across the Province.

4. Females with cubs must be strongly protected during both hunts. To do so, the Ontario government must hire more people for enforcement, more Conservation Officers.

5. Reduce human/bear conflicts by managing people, not bears. Require them to manage their own waste.

6. Evidence of the accomplishments and milestones of the pilot projects of MNRF and the extended pilot project needs to be released to the public before any decision on this proposal is made.

7. Baiting should be stopped, as it is unethical. If it will continue, baiting must end when the season ends and not be allowed to begin again until shortly before the fall season.

8. More stringent limits must be put in place to protect recreationalists, drivers, property owners, pets, and others from bait piles that attract wildlife. All bait sites should be registered to ensure compliance.

9. Information verifying an increase in enforcement capability through funding, infrastructure and boots-on-the-ground hires of conservation officers should be made available to the public.

10. The MNRF must acknowledge that the spring bear hunt is not about community safety as originally stated in 2014 in light of the evidence that this hunt only increases human/wildlife conflicts and causes untold misery to our youngest bears. Enforcement of human behavior (e.g., removal of waste, etc.) and education about bear behavior, attractants and feeding will be especially important to protect both our bears and our citizens.

11. The MNRF appears to be moving backward instead of forward in light of climate change and the ethics of Ontarians. A report should be prepared and released on the impact of the spring bear hunt on other recreationalists’ safety, freedom to explore and expectations, since bear hunters in the spring make up a very small proportion of people enjoying our wilderness.

12. A plan should be prepared and released on efforts of the Ontario government to increase availability and awareness (advertising) of non-consumptive ecotourism opportunities in the province alongside the limited spring bear hunt.

13. The use of dogs or other “tools” to chase, tree and/or otherwise harass bears should be immediately stopped.