Mimicking the thoughts and…

Mimicking the thoughts and reasoning of Toronto Wildlife Centre, a charity wildlife hospital that have been working daily for decades to help sick, injured and orphaned wild animals, I think encouraging a permanent annual hunting season for bears puts both mother bears, and subsequently bear cubs, at risk.

Hunters often struggle to pinpoint the difference between a male and female black bear, and risk killing a mother bear during the spring season – orphaning her cubs who are too young to survive on their own.
This is one of the main reasons why I am speaking up against the suggestion to make an annual spring black bear hunting season permanent in Ontario. While there is a ban on killing bear cubs and their mothers, this won’t stop hunters who fail to make the distinction. Inadvertently shooting mother bears is what prompted the cancellation of a previous pilot spring hunting season, and reinstating it based on a proposed economic need just isn’t enough to warrant the negative impact on the species.

We have to work harder and make better informed, and more science-driven decisions when it comes to policies that impact wildlife and their habitat in general. While hunters and anglers can be great stewards of the environment, there is a history of these mistakes, and we can't afford to put our biodiversity at more risk. Thank you for your time.