I am strongly opposed to…

I am strongly opposed to making the spring bear hunt in Ontario permanent.

One argument often made in favour of bear hunting is increased human safety but there is no clear evidence for that. The truth is that the danger posed by bears is hugely exaggerated by media and by those who want to garner support for bear hunting. As a wildlife photographer who has spent many months and years with both black and grizzly bears, I know firsthand that virtually every encounter between humans and bears is benign. While the media reports extensively on the rare encounter that results in human injury, no coverage is given to the thousands and millions of encounters where bears just go about their business without bothering anyone.

In fact, baiting bears for the convenience of hunters can readily lead to increased human-bear conflict because food-conditioned bears continue to seek out sources of human food. Every conservation officer knows that the best way to be safe in bear country is to keep food and other attractants away from bears, not putting food out intentionally as is done during bear hunting in Ontario. Since the location of bait stations does not have to be publicized and since they can be placed as close as 500 m from human habitation, a person unaware of the bait could easily stumble across the bait site and find themselves in a dangerous situation.

Baiting bears and hunting bears at their most vulnerable when they have just emerged from hibernation is not even remotely congruent with the hunter concept of fair chase.

Bear hunting, especially spring bear hunting, inevitably results in far too many orphaned cubs. In spring, mother bears emerging ravenous from having lost up to 40% of their body weight during hibernation often stash their cubs safely up a tree because the small spring cubs may not be able to keep up with her as she forages some distance away. She is unlikely to bring her cubs with her to a bait station to keep them safe from the other bears attracted by the bait. Spring cubs are still too small to need much milk so the female's mammary glands are not obvious as they are later in the season. For all these reasons, it can be virtually impossible for a spring hunter to detect whether the bear he is killing has cubs that will be left to slowly die.

One argument in favour of the spring hunt is economic benefit. Bear viewing and photography can bring in far more revenue than bear hunting as has been shown in British Columbia. https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/wildlife-tourism-more-profita…
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/is-b-c-s-trophy-hunt-for-grizzly-b…
Bear viewing does not require baiting and so does not food-condition bears. It is non-consumptive; the same bear can be viewed repeatedly by many ecotourists whereas a bear can only be killed by one hunter once. Ontario has much considerable for development of commercial bear viewing opportunities. https://dr.library.brocku.ca/handle/10464/13133

I do support the proposed reduction of bear hunting on the Bruce Peninsula; hunting there should be banned altogether given the declining bear population in that area.