Friday, April 17, 2015

84 #wolves killed in B.C. during cull program

The Canadian Press
The provincial government said it planned to have hunters shoot as many as 184 wolves from helicopters this year, but wound up killing just half that amount.
The provincial government said it planned to have hunters shoot as many as 184 wolves from helicopters this year, but wound up killing just half that amount.
Gary Kramer/AP
VICTORIA – Helicopter hunters shot less than half of the wolves they were allowed to kill during the first year of a controversial B.C. government program to protect threatened caribou herds.

The cull began Jan. 15 in the South Selkirks and the South Peace regions of B.C. where the government says wolves preyed on herds with declining populations.

The province initially announced that government-contracted hunters would shoot as many as 184 wolves.

But the Forests Ministry says 11 wolves were shot in the South Selkirks and another 73 were killed in the South Peace when the hunt ended.

Ian McAllister of Pacific Wild has been critical of the hunt in the past, saying the real problem is habitat destruction and the cull is a taxpayer-funded program to kill an iconic species.

The ministry says the caribou population in the South Selkirks declined from 46 to 14 between 2009 and March 2015, and in the South Peace wolves account for 37 per cent of all adult caribou mortalities.

source

WATCH: There were an estimated 8500 wolves roaming wild in British Columbia when the province made their decision. Kylie Stanton reports.


1 comment:

  1. there is no way the government can do a accurate count....to much land to even try...these figures are pulled out of a hat just like the 15000 bears we are supposed to have. there is only a small attempt to be scientific other than that the figures are not representative of anything that anyone has counted. i call bullshit on the government and its cull program

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