Read Common Ground's December cover story

December 12, 2002

Editor
Common Ground Magazine

I am writing in response to an article by Chris Genovali (Government Hiding Information on Grizzly Killings) published in the December issue of your magazine. The article contains inflammatory and inaccurate information about grizzly bear management in British Columbia and deserves correction.

One of the clear commitments that this government made prior to being elected was to replace the blanket moratorium on grizzly bear hunting with a proper peer review by scientists and biologists, and local moratoriums to address conservation concerns. This commitment is consistent with our government’s approach to managing the environment with principled science underpinning our decision, not political opportunism.

In support of making science-based decisions, we have enlisted the help of an independent Grizzly Bear Scientific Panel made up of respected scientists and academics. The panel will submit its findings at the end of December and their results will help ensure that our approach is sustainable and scientifically sound. Your readers can look forward to a further response from me once I have had occasion to study the panel’s report.

Consistent with this approach, we remain open to any science-based information that can better inform our policy development and decision-making. If in fact Mr. Genovali has any such evidence, I invite him to submit it and contribute to this process.

Best regards,

Joyce Murray
Minister of Water, Land and Air Protection
PO Box 9047
STN PROV GOVT
Victoria BC
V8W 9E2
Email: joyce.murray.mla@leg.bc.ca
Tel: 250 387-1187
Fax: 250 387-1356
www.gov.bc.ca

Chris Genovali replies:

Dear Editor:

The only thing that deserves correction is Joyce Murray s incessant propaganda regarding the grizzly hunt.

The Liberals decision to overturn the moratorium and reinstate the grizzly hunt was based on political science, not biological science. What does it say about a government that has the resumption of killing grizzly bears for sport as one of the very first priorities on its agenda? The Liberals have no interest in science; they are simply on a vindictive mission to repudiate each and every policy the NDP enacted, good or bad. The fact is the Liberals never had an official position on the grizzly hunt until the previous government announced the moratorium.

The province s questionable grizzly bear management has been thoroughly criticized by both independent and government biologists. Dr. Brian Horejsi, a wildlife scientist with 30 years of grizzly bear research experience, has said that current government grizzly population estimates have no foundation in science and are primarily paper exercises extrapolating numbers from two radio telemetry study areas. Dionys deLeeuw, a government biologist who has had a gag order imposed upon him for exposing the pseudo-science used to justify the hunt, has revealed that "the allowable kill of 300 grizzlies per year established in 1979 was exceeded every year from 1965 to 1997, on average by 236 bears." According to deLeeuw, female grizzly kill was especially excessive, as the province "has allowed an extensive female overkill for at least the past 33 years."

Murray and her government have gone to extraordinary lengths in refusing to comply with rulings by both the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the BC Supreme Court to provide Raincoast Conservation Society with information that is critical to grizzly bear conservation. Raincoast is seeking site specific grizzly kill location data in order to conduct an independent scientific analysis. This type of analysis is essential to understanding the impacts of sport hunting on grizzly bear populations throughout the province. But information is power and Murray and her ministry's special interest supporters (i.e., grizzly hunting lobby groups) know this quite well. Murray s actions are clearly designed to keep the public in the dark, placing the citizens of BC at a severe disadvantage when attempting to participate in the decision making process regarding grizzly bear conservation.

The so-called independent science panel that was struck by Murray when the Liberals overturned the moratorium will not be analyzing the aforementioned grizzly kill location data, casting doubt on the credibility of their entire process. Despite pledging that her ministry will ensure openness and accountability in all our decisions, the science panel was hand picked behind closed doors with no opportunity for public input. Not one of the leading Canadian grizzly bear experts was appointed to the panel; it doesn t appear to be a coincidence that they all supported a moratorium on the hunt. In addition, Murray made a commitment that all of the information provided by her ministry to the panel for analysis would be made public, but despite multiple requests by Raincoast, she has refused to provide access to that information.

Murray’s facile attempt to spin her shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach as some sort of grizzly bear conservation initiative would be laughable were the consequences not so deadly serious.

Sincerely,

Chris Genovali
Executive Director
Raincoast Conservation Society
P.O. Box 8663
Victoria, B.C. V8W 3S2
Tel: 250-655-1229
Fax: 250-655-1339
Email: chris@raincoast.org
Website: www.raincoast.org

Premier Gordon Campbell's Letter to the Editor from the December 6th, 2002 New York Times was faxed to Common Ground by the Western Canada Wilderness Committee (www.wildernesscommittee.org). It was his response to an article about the logging of ancient forests in southwestern British Columbia, home of the last 25 pairs of spotted owls in Canada.

To the Editor:

Your Dec. 4 Grouse Mountain Journal, about the spotted owl in British Columbia, suggests that species-at-risk conservation takes a back seat to logging in British Columbia. British Columbia is concerned about the spotted owl and its delicate situation. As responsible stewards of the forests, we're assessing potential actions of species preservation.

The provincial governement, forest companies and other stakeholders are working together to identify means of addressing management and recovery of the spotted owl in British Columbia. Habitat decisions are made with the best available understanding of scientific and socioeconomic factors affecting species sustainability, not with lumber interests solely in mind.

There is more old-growth in British Columbia now than 100 years ago, amounting to 62 million acres. That total is projected to increase in the century ahead.

GORDON CAMPBELL
Premier
Vancouver, British Columbia
Dec. 6, 2002

Premier Gordon Campbell
PO Box 9041, Stn Prov Govt
Victoria BC V8W 9E1
Phone: 250 387-1715
Fax: 250 387-0087
Email: premier@gov.bc.ca
www.gov.bc.ca