Alberta grizzly hunters will get to keep bear carcasses

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Hunters tasked with killing problem grizzly bears under a new Alberta program will get to keep the carcass afterwards, National Post has confirmed.

“The carcass may require inspection by a Wildlife Officer and the responder is able to keep all parts of the bear,” said Pam Davidson, an Alberta government spokesperson, in an email.

Last month, the Alberta government quietly changed provisions in the Wildlife Act that allow for hunters to, in the case of euthanizing problem grizzlies, take over the duties of a wildlife officer in pulling the trigger.

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On June 17, changes to the act allowed Forestry Minister Todd Loewen to “establish a pool of eligible persons from which the name of an eligible person may be selected to be given the opportunity to obtain a grizzly bear management authorization under this section.”

“The loss of even one human life because of a grizzly bear attack is one too many,” Loewen, who owns a hunting outfitter company in Valleyview, Alta., said in a statement.

In other words, an Alberta hunter could be drawn from this pool if a grizzly needs to be killed. They would then have 24 hours to get on site, liaise with a wildlife officer, and go hunting. Bears with cubs cannot be hunted, and the bear must be in conflict with humans or in “an area of concern” in order to be killed. They are eligible if they pose “an imminent public safety risk” or have “killed livestock, damaged private property or made contact with a human resulting in injury or death.”

“Our wildlife enforcement officers have been killing these same bears for years, we are now adding a support network,” said Davidson in a statement.

The new program does not mean, however, that the 18-year moratorium on the grizzly bear hunt has been ended. It remains in place.

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Alberta grizzly bears, with a population that’s perhaps around 1,100 individuals, remains “threatened” in Alberta, the province says. The increase in population means that bears have been moving into populated rural areas, the government says.

Prior to 2006, Alberta had an annual spring grizzly bear hunt. In 2005, the last time the hunt was held, 73 permits were issued and 10 bears were killed, amidst considerable controversy over the health of the province’s bear population.

The Alberta government has cast the new program as a way to reduce bear-human and bear-livestock conflicts. Between 2000 and 2021, there were 104 bear attacks in Alberta — although this figure, provided by the provincial government, includes attacks by both grizzlies and black bears. (There is still an annual black bear hunt in Alberta.)

In 2023 and 2024, bears, both black and grizzly, killed 120 head of livestock.

“So far in 2024, there have been significantly more reports than usual of problematic — and dangerous — grizzly-human and grizzly-animal interactions,” the government said in a news release.

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The move has been lauded by some farmers whose livestock have been killed by bears; however, it has also caused controversy.

Sarah Elmeligi, the Alberta NDP’s tourism and environment critic, who is also a bear biologist, slammed the move.

“Killing grizzly bears does not reduce human-bear conflict. It does not solve the problem. We know from scientific research that the best way to reduce conflict is to work with people to better coexist with grizzly bears,” Elmeligi said in a news release.

“(Loewen) is scaring Albertans into believing that grizzly attacks are commonplace and that the only way to solve the problem is to kill bears. This is just outright false. Killing bears doesn’t reduce conflict, it reduces populations.”

National Post with additional reporting by the Calgary Herald

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