Bears Matter
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Sunday, 15 August 2010 03:00 |
Friday, August 13, 2010 04:00 AM, opinion250.com
Prince George, B.C.- As pre-hearings begin into Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline Project, a B.C. filmmaker is doing his own labour-intensive survey of grassroots' sentiment on the proposal.
A joint review panel, involving the National Energy Board and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, held its first public hearing on the proposed $5.5-billion dollar pipeline in Whitecourt, Alberta on Tuesday. A hearing is set for Kitimat on August 31st, and in Prince George on September 8th.
North Vancouver filmmaker, Frank Wolf, began his journey back on July 10th. His goal: to travel the entire route of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline by self-propulsion. Wolf and his friend, Todd McGowan (a teacher), have been walking, hiking, biking -- and will soon add rafting and kayaking to their list -- as close as possible to the GPS track of the line.
The pair actually began their journey biking through the barren tar sands in Fort McMurray and will end 1800-kilometres away in the tiny First Nation community of Hartley Bay in the mouth of the Douglas Channel. Wolf says the start point obviously signals where all oil production emanates from in Alberta, and Hartley Bay signals where the loaded oil tankers could one day move out to sea.
Wolf has entitled his film, "On The Line", and, for him, it combines his passion for adventure with his desire to get to the heart of a very contentious issue. "Often in these environmental issues, you have one side screaming at the other," he says.
"You get the spin from Enbridge and you get the spin from the big environmental organizations and when they're on the air, you know exactly what they're going to say," Wolf continues. "But if you have people living there and directly affected by it, they give you a more honest opinion. And that's how I think you're getting more of a real view of what's really at stake here and that's what the film's going to try and bring forth."
Wolf and McGowan have veered away from the direct route to talk to a whole host of individuals -- all with a stake 'on the line':
• a young worker in the oil patch torn between his high paying career and his fear of seeing a repeat of what's happened in the Gulf of Mexico, happen in the wilderness of B.C.
• a farming family in Fort Saskatchewan with opinions divided along generational lines: the father in favour of all industry growth, the daughter seeing how the ever-expanding oil industry is encroaching on Alberta's pastoral lands
• a long-time cab driver in Grande Prairie who says he's never seen any long-term benefits to communities along pipeline routes...he says there's an initial boom that fades out
And, after hiking a treacherous, but spectacular stretch from Tumbler Ridge through the Rockies, the pair made a Prince George connection. Todd McGowan says, "As soon as we came out of the Rocky Pass -- it was a really tough hike getting through there -- a father and son from PG were on their way fishing and they pulled over at about 11:30 in the morning and handed us a couple of beers out the window."
Wolf says an interesting chat ensued, revealing the man has spent his whole career involved in the industry: first, as a mechanical engineer; now, he works for the National Research Council, looking into industry projects in northern B.C.. Wolf says the man told them that a few years ago, he would have said, "Hammer the pipeline through and put oil rigs in the Hecate Strait", but since the BP spill in the Gulf and Enbridge's spill in Michigan, he's completely opposed to any pipeline going through B.C.'s most pristine areas.
McGowan says he came to a similar conclusion while trekking through the seemingly untouched watershed up in the Rocky Mountain pass. He says if the pipeline burst in that area, it would be close to impossible to get in to repair it, especially in any kind of timely fashion. Wolf points out that watershed feeds numerous rivers running down both the east and west sides of the Rockies.
The two men arrived in Prince George on Wednesday and met with members of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council and a community group speaking out against the pipeline. Wolf says the message from all First Nations he's spoken with is simple: they are staunchly opposed to the pipeline because it poses too great a risk to their traditional fishing and hunting lands. Wolf says the Carrier Sekani have been saying no to Enbridge since an earlier proposal in 2006 and, he says, the band made it clear to him that if the government approves the project, that will just be the beginning of the battle, as they will seek out legal, political and international support to stop it.
It's opinions such as these, that Wolf says are, "the truest barometer of what's going on with this issue." The filmmaker and his friend packed up their gear yesterday and headed out on the next leg of their journey, biking to Houston. (Their mountain bikes, they point out, generously loaned to them from local shop, Koops Bikes) From there, they'll hike over the Coast Mountains to the Kitimat River, paddle down on river rafts to Kitimat, and kayak on to Hartley Bay. They expect to wrap up their epic adventure by early September. (For updates on their trek, go to http://pipeline-walk.blogspot.com/
Wolf hopes to have his film complete by late December or early January and says his first priority is to have it shown in communities along the route "where it matters most", before trying to get it into the film festival circuit.
Go to www.pacificwild.org for more information
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Friday, 30 July 2010 21:41 |
Bears Matter Comment: Wildilfe Act 88.1 which states it is illegal to intentionally feed 'dangerous' wildlife should be expanded to include ALL Wildlife. With more and more human settlements encroaching on wildlife corridors and forest interfaces there will be more and more conflicts with wildlife of all sizes and decriptions. To intentionally feed squirrels, raccoons, deer, bear, wolves, coyotes etc. defies all logic and common sense. Let the wild be wild and stay as wary of humans as possible and avoid the risks that go along with close encounters with humans.
By Shannon Moneo
Victoria — From Friday's Globe and Mail Published on Thursday, Jul. 29, 2010 10:34PM EDT Last updated on Thursday, Jul. 29, 2010 10:36PM EDT-(See link below for comments and to add comments).
As B.C. experiences a bizarre season of wildlife-human conflicts, with a rare attack by a black bear and deer being demonized for attacking people and pets, a wildlife ecologist says people need to change.
“Humans aren't particularly good at modifying their behaviour to accommodate wild animals,” said Chris Darimont, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and research scientist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation. “Humans have concluded we hold dominion over wild animals.”
But increasingly, humans are sharing space with mammals such as deer, who are in effect food migrants, following what Mr. Darimont refers to as “delicious things in gardens and lawns.” Unpleasant incidents occur when humans push the instinctive buttons that animals have for dealing with predators, Mr. Darimont said from his Victoria office.
One example occurred on July 20, when a woman in Victoria went for a walk with her medium-sized mutt and saw a doe with three fawns. She cautiously kept moving, but the doe charged and later stomped on her dog, who wasn’t badly injured. To the doe, the dog was a wolf, and thus a threat to her fawns, so naturally she displayed anti-predator behaviour, Mr. Darimont said.
“We don’t think of deer as aggressors,” he said. “We think of them as big-eyed creatures.” When they attack, it’s completely unexpected, eliciting a raw response that harkens back to human evolutionary memories of being both predator and prey, Mr. Darimont explained.
In Cranbrook, a doe attacked a dog in June, and earlier this month a newspaper carrier was left with a black eye after a deer encounter. The eastern B.C. community, as well as neighbouring Kimberly, are polling their residents to see what should be done, with a cull as one solution. In Victoria and Nanaimo, residents have also been calling for deer culls due to the damage the animals are doing to gardens.
According to Ministry of Environment spokesperson Angie Poss, a cull is only one method. Repellents, landscaping alternatives and fencing are other possibilities. Population reduction strategies such as capture-and-relocate programs and fertility-control strategies are other options.
But eliminating deer from urban settings won’t be easy, Mr. Darimont said. The easily accessible, nutritious food found in yards, along with a loss of predators, are sustaining urbanized deer.
“The only default is to modify our behaviour to avoid encounters,” he said. “Fence our gardens better, don’t let dogs approach deer.”
Other animals are also losing their natural habitats. A 2004 Journal of Bioscience study reported that in North America, grey wolves have lost 42 per cent of their range, cougars have lost 36 per cent, grizzly bears 53 per cent and black bears 39 per cent.
In the case of the recent black-bear attack, a Vancouver Island man had been sleeping outside under a tarpaulin near Port Alberni, even though a bear had been spotted around the campsite three days earlier when food was briefly left out.
“If the camper had knowledge of a bear hanging around in camp, it’s likely not a wise thing to be sleeping outside,” Mr. Darimont said. “If the bear was hanging around camp, that bear had access to food before the event occurred.”
The attack on the sleeping camper, which left the man with head wounds requiring plastic surgery, as well as other wounds, was only the second ever on Vancouver Island by a black bear that resulted in injury. Mr. Darimont suspects the male, 68-kilogram bear may have mistaken the man for a deer.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/humans-need-to-change-to-avoid-violent-wildlife-encounters-expert/article1656752/#comments
Special to The Globe and Mail
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Tuesday, 27 July 2010 17:21 |
Bears Matter Note: This is considered Trophy Hunting in B.C?....the senseless killing for pure entertainment and the thrill of the kill must stop in B.C. If you don't eat what you kill don't kill it? If a person wants to go out in our pristine wilderness areas and race around on high powered snowmobiles unfortunately there are not laws to protect these areas against the noise and disturbance to wildlife this causes but when the snowmobilers are packing guns and killing for fun that is way over the top of what should be acceptable and legal in BC. Please write Minister Penner and let him know this must stop!barry.penner.mla@leg.bc.ca Thank you! B. Murray
By Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun July 27, 2010
When it comes to hunting, Environment Minister Barry Penner says B.C. is home to the "fair chase."
But the use of bait and high-powered snowmobiles to target a wolf pack during a guided trophy hunt on an ice-covered lake in northern B.C. is raising questions about that assertion.
While the rest of the province was captivated by the Winter Olympics last February, a trophy hunting couple associated with the Dallas Safari Club in Texas made their way to Williston Lake reservoir west of Fort St. John to hunt wolves with Dennis Beattie's Wicked River Outfitters.
Writing about the hunt in the club's May issue of Camp Talk, Eddie and Lynne Hopkins say they started their hunt after breakfast with a guide identified as Steve Fiarchuck.
"Steve had a bait pile that he wanted to check about a mile from the lodge," they wrote. The site contained fresh tracks and their guide spotted wolves on the lake about five kilometres away.
The guide told Eddie Hopkins to jump on board his snowmobile and they sped off, leaving his partner behind.
"I never dreamed you could go so fast on a snow machine," Hopkins wrote, estimating the top speed at 140 to 150 km/h.
"As we flew down the lake, Steve explained that we had to get to the wolves before they got to shore. We were fortunate to get to the seven-member wolf pack and turn them towards the centre of the lake.
"As the pack headed out across the lake, they went in various directions. Steve shouted, 'What colour do you want?' I said, 'Black' and he headed toward a big black wolf."
Hopkins killed the wolf on the third shot after the snowmobile came "within 10 yards" of the animal.
"Steve instantly said, 'Get back on and let's try to get another one.' Steve got us up beside a huge male grey wolf and I redeemed myself by making a quick kill with one well-placed shot."
The article added: "During the course of the week, we killed five wolves, two coyotes and took a bunch of animals from the trapline.
"If you have never experienced British Columbia in the winter, you owe it to yourself to go."
Conservationists were aghast.
"It's horrific, in the context of a family of wolves," commented Ian McAllister of Pacific Wild, a group that works extensively with wolves on the B.C. coast. "That's how they're treated.
"If that's legal, it's that much more appalling."
Joe Foy of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee said the trophy hunt puts the lie to B.C.'s claim as the Best Place on Earth.
"Most British Columbians would be as sickened as I am by this so-called 'sport.' That article was some kind of sick eco-porn for those that like to hurt living creatures for the fun of it."
Penner refused to comment about the article, saying the hunt is under investigation by the Conservation Officer Service.
Beattie said in a phone interview that the hunt was perfectly legal despite a Wildlife Act prohibition against the use of a "motor vehicle or other mechanical device to herd or harass wildlife."
Beattie insisted the guide was simply using the snowmobile to prevent the wolves from running off the lake and was not herding or chasing them.
"On this hunt, they were cut off from going to the bank [shore], you drive between them and the bank, and then you do your hunting.
"They're not chasing these animals. That's totally against the law and it's against our rules of ethics."
Beattie, who is head of the Northern B.C. Guides Association, said the hunter got off the snowmobile before shooting, as required by law.
He cut the interview short by saying, "Don't bother me any more."
The Wicked River Outfitters' website states: "We'll do everything we can, within the law and fair chase, to see that you get your game."
It encourages clients to pay $53.50 to the province for a wolf tag so they can hunt the animals. Beattie charges more than $4,000 US for a week's wolf-hunting.
In the foreword to the B.C. hunting regulations, Penner states:
"Our hunting and trapping seasons continue to be based upon the foundations of conservation, sustainable use, fair chase and human safety.
"Combine that with our spectacular scenery and wildlife resources, and it's clear why British Columbia is the best place on earth to be a hunter and trapper."
lpynn@vancouversun.com
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Trophy+hunters+bait+lure+wolves/3326922/story.html#ixzz0uu74cHVO
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