- By Nick Voutour & Pacific Wild
500,000 Thank Yous on Behalf of B.C.’s Wild Wolves
This month, our online petition to #SaveBCWolves crossed a monumental milestone, exceeding half a million signatures.
- By Nick Voutour & Pacific Wild
500,000 Thank Yous on Behalf of B.C.’s Wild Wolves
This month, our online petition to #SaveBCWolves crossed a monumental milestone, exceeding half a million signatures.
Garnering this much support has been a long time coming. We’ve been working with our partners to spread the word about this issue and collect signatures since the current killing program was greenlit in 2015. Now we want to thank all of our wolf advocates for adding their voices to this issue and ask for continued engagement as we move forward. After all, there’s still much more work to be done.
As we’ve campaigned to build this community of support since the wolf cull began five years ago, $2,272,000 tax dollars have been carelessly spent on this ineffective killing spree in British Columbia, Canada. An internal government document from August 2019 revealed that at least 562 wolves have been eliminated through various methods, mainly via aerial gunning from helicopters and ground trapping. A recent news article posted on March 7 revealed that 94 additional wolves were culled for the 2020 season bringing the total number to 656.
Recently, we retained legal counsel from Breder Law who found grounds that the aerial gunning activities carried out during culling operations are in direct contravention of the B.C.’s own laws. This led to the delivery of a Cease and Desist letter to B.C.’s Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development Minister, Doug Donaldson which has been ignored as of this posting. Under section 27 of the Wildlife Act, it is considered an offence to “use a helicopter while on a hunting expedition”. While certain exemptions exist under permit regulations, these exemptions do not extend to civilian contractors engaged in a hunting expedition with a helicopter. As such, the Regional Manager does not have the authority to issue permits for any planned culling activity with helicopters.
All this comes after decades of habitat destruction and human encroachment have left B.C.’s mountain caribou on the edge of survival. But rather than making serious changes to industrial policies in an effort to protect critical old-growth habitat, the provincial government has instead placed the blame on our province’s wild wolves as a continued justification for the cull.
Photo: Ian McAllister. As long as the government continues to bow to industrial greed, more and more critical caribou habitat will be demolished.
How many wolves need to suffer before wildlife managers start tackling the root cause of the problem?
As long as the government continues to bow to industrial greed, more and more critical caribou habitat will be demolished. In fact, the TC Energy Coastal GasLink pipeline project at the centre of the Wet’suwet’en conflict poses far more risk to caribou survival than their natural predators. If the project goes forward, huge areas of the southern mountain caribou’s habitat — critical old-growth forests will be destroyed to make room for the 670-kilometre pipeline.
But as long as our network of 500,000+ wolf supporters continues to grow, we will challenge this archaic approach to wildlife management and harmful industrial projects together. B.C. and Canada need to do better for it’s breathtaking wildlife rather than vilifying predators and gunning them down so ruthlessly.
Together, along with our supporters, we will continue spreading awareness and advocating for the conservation of B.C.’s wolf population. Today, we want to celebrate half a million voices to #SaveBCWolves. If you haven’t already done so, we invite you to engage with our wolf campaign by following us on social media and joining our online community, The Call. We will be sharing information on how we will take action with these signatures on these platforms in the near future.
For the wolves,
The Pacific Wild team
