The Myth: hunting as conservation

There are many celebrities who celebrate using powerful weapons to trophy hunt. I need not remind you whom. Lots of people do this, and brag about their trophies on Social Media, with photos of the dead animals placed as if they were sleeping.  Twitter bans some of them! Sometimes.

There are those who see no problem in baiting animals in order to hunt them. Or they use dogs to help bring down their intended victims. Recently, in Northern Ontario, Six people pled guilty to illegal and unsafe hunting. These hunters think that Canadian laws do not apply to them. 

4 Americans, 2 Canadians fined $50K for illegal moose hunting in northern Ont.

An investigation that lasted almost two years has resulted in moose hunting violation convictions for six people and a lodge in Red Lake in northwestern Ontario.

 

 

I understand that an animal that is no longer afraid of humans, like the bears around here, should be trapped and moved. If is is beyond saving, or there is no place to take it, then it should be safely euthanized. Mind you, bears attacking humans is very, very rare. Usually, it seems to me, it is people feeding wild animals, and getting them used to humans that leads to issues.

        Myths abound around, promoted by those claiming hunting as conservation:

    1. You can control populations using trophy hunting.

    2. You can reduce wildcat/human negative encounters.

    3. It reduces animal predation on livestock.

    4. It reduces predation on wild animals.

There are some interesting 'discussions' about this notion: hunting as conservation. Our new neighbours went on a trophy hunt in Nevada. They own property in Alabama and showed a photo of an AK 10 they used hunting. The husband posted the sad photo on Facebook, and they got a lot of flack back from it from locals. (This is the neighbour who is lobbying to open a gun range.) They took that image down.

An AK 10 for hunting

 There are many people in the area who hunt ethically. They don't bait them. They don't tree the animals with dogs. They limit their take, and do not take money from people who want to hunt on their properties. 

We filmed moose in Algonquin Park (2010) 

This issue was raised recently when Derek Wolfe (football star) celebrated his hunt and told the story about his hunt for a Mountain Lion. It is a sad story. They call it to 'run a lion' when they release hounds who follow a lion track, until it is chased up a tree where they shoot it. In this case it was a problem animal, which in Canada falls under ministry legislation. 

The story: The Truth About Derek Wolfe's Viral Mountain Lion Hunt  

 By now, you’ve probably seen the photo of former Bronco defensive lineman Derek Wolfe and the enormous mountain lion he recently shot in his home state of Colorado. 

There are studies which have debunked this conservation theory, hunting to manage populations:

The Elephant in the room 🐘: What can we learn from California regarding the use of sport hunting of pumas (Puma concolor) as a management tool? 

 The results of these comparisons concur with a growing number of regional studies that find no consistent evidence that sport hunting is functioning as an effective management tool. It may, in fact, be having the opposite results. It is becoming evident that under the guidelines of adaptive management, in the absence of evidence of its efficacy, state agencies should refrain from prescribing sport hunting as a management tool." 

––Laundré JW, Papouchis C (2020) The Elephant in the room: What can we learn from California regarding the use of sport hunting of pumas (Puma concolor) as a management tool?. PLOS ONE 15(2): e0224638. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224638

What did they find? That targeting problem animals, as in California, where they do not use hunting as conservation, there is no difference in animal/human conflict. No escalation. 

Janet Pesaturo, who wrote the book I reviewed on camera trapping, wrote to me:

Yes, in parts of the US, predator hatred runs deep, but it also runs along the political divide. On the extreme right wing, people think it's their duty to annihilate as many predators as possible, so yes, we see our share of that. Predator conservation and management are very controversial topics, especially in the western states.

This article mentions the study: "Evidence Does Not Support Hunting As A Way To Control Cougars: Study."

🐅 🦓 🐘 🦒 🦌 🦁 🐺

STORIES from Ontario abound citing fines for illegal hunting:

• Three southern Ontario men fined $10,000  for hunting violations in the north
• Man fined $15K for shooting moose near Espanola without a license, abandoning it in the woods
• Kingston man fined $7K for firing toward dog, two people during northern Ont. hunt
• $3,000 fine handed to Belle River man for moose hunting violations
• Five people fined $55K for illegal moose hunt in northern Ontario
• Police launch moose hunt pilot program for Indigenous youth
• Three Cochrane men fined $9,500 for moose hunting violations
• Moose hunters near Hearst fined $9K for illegal hunt, attempt at coverup
• Decoy moose helps conservation officers catch trio illegally hunting near Kapuskasing
• Southern Ontario man fined $20K for shooting moose out of season near North Bay