When
environmentalist Anthony Marr brought his campaign to ban grizzly bear
hunting to Nanaimo, his audience listened. Not everyone in the Beban Park
meeting room Tuesday night agreed with him, but they all paid attention.
Bob
Morris, past-president of the BC Wildlife Federation, and Bill Derby,
vice-president of the Nanaimo Fish and Game Protection Association, were
two of a party of hunters who came to hear what Marr had to say about bear
hunting. And to challenge his conclusions.
Morris didn�t trust Marr�s
motives, or those of WCWC.
�Basically their goal is to try and ban hunting altogether, using the
grizzly bear as an icon.� Marr replied that that would be a glorious
quest, but one too distant for his remaining life span.
Derby
said the grizzly bear hunt is �very tightly controlled�, taking fewer
bears than die as road kill. Morris said there was no need to ban the
hunt, as the grizzly population is rising. Marr replied that grizzly bear
hunt victims number about 300, higher than the road kill number, and that
even according to the BC government, the grizzly bear population is
decreasing in the long run.
Derby
said banning hunting might lead to more bears getting killed, because as
they got more accustomed to being around people, they would get bolder.
Marr
answered that he�s heard all these arguments before. There was no evidence
that stopping the hunt would make the bears more dangerous, such as in the
Yellowstone and Glacier
National Park, where grizzly hunting is not
allowed�
Marr�s
campaign has won him a variety of enemies�
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