By Repp Porter (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: October 15, 2014
BC bears have been warned of the increased sale of hunting licenses in the province.
The provincial government surpassed its target of selling 100,000 hunting licences for the year, which they expect will prove a great source of revenue. According to the Guide Outfitters Association of BC, hunters who come from outside of Canada spend more per capita, per day, than any other type of tourist.
Grizzly hunting in particular receives heavy media attention. This fall season, 1,609 grizzly hunting licences were issued. The government reminds the public that grizzlies are not, in fact, endangered.
Endangered or not, there are many groups who oppose the grizzly hunt, including the Coastal First Nations. Jessie Housty, an elected councillor for the Heiltsuk First Nation, deemed the hunt a “moral issue,” calling the grizzly “an incredible species to us both spiritually and culturally.”
According to the Province, Housty said the bear hunt is also in direct conflict with communities’ efforts to promote sustainable eco-tourism businesses, which bring in more money without killing bears. Scott Protter, a local expert on everything, disagrees with naysayers of trophy hunting: “Bah! Who cares? Fuck bears! They get into everybody’s garbage. Besides, they’re taking all our jobs.” Indeed, both the garbage-eating and employment rates among bears of all kinds have increased rapidly since the ursidae began their emigration from wooded areas to the public sphere. More and more bears are becoming public officials, doctors, and educators in this predominantly human society. Yet, there is no data to suggest that this has displaced human employment by a significant number.
“Yeah, right,” said Protter in response to this. “Anyone who says that has obviously been indoctrinated by propaganda like those amoral Berenstain Bear books.”
Mama Bear, an Abbotsford mother of one, fears for her species’ future in the face of prejudice. “Humans invade our home almost monthly, eating all our porridge and breaking all our furniture,” she wrote in a letter to the provincial government. “After these invasions, all we have to eat is garbage; our only place to sit is in the city! And on top of all this, they want to shoot us?”
Mama demands a serious effort be made on the government’s part to turn the public eye from bears’ apparently strange eating habits, to the very real violence against an ultimately innocent demographic.
Acknowledging Mama’s letter, Protter maintained (through a mouthful of McDonalds cheeseburger and Coca-Cola) that these “junk-munching people-guilters deserve a bullet in their fat, furry asses.
“Let’s not be naive,” he added, raising his eyebrows as high as he could.
A group of grizzlies attempted to eat Protter after his exceedingly loud interview last Monday, but decided mid-way they would rather leave room in their stomachs for some trash.
