OFAH FILE: 405/828
February 28, 2014
To: Letter to the Editor
Subject: Response to commentary by Barry McKay, February 22, 2014
I would like to take this opportunity to refute some of the extremely misleading statements made by Barry Kent McKay about the spring bear hunt in Ontario. McKay claims that there is a lack of “transparency and citizen democracy,” even though the proposal is currently posted on the Environmental Registry for a 30-day public comment period.
The most disturbing aspect of McKay’s letter is the misrepresentation of government data. When McKay claims that MNR estimated that 270 cubs were orphaned each spring, he shows a blatant disregard for the relevant information accompanying that estimate. The estimate of 274 orphaned cubs is actually the maximum number of cubs that could have been if no legislation existed to protect female bears (which it does) and that nursing females are as vulnerable to the hunt as other females (which they are not). Statements such as this by McKay totally ignore the sophisticated and tightly regulated black bear management regime that exists in Ontario, and even prompted an MNR biologist to clarify that “the actual number of orphaned cubs was at least an order of magnitude less than the 274 figure,” and that “the best information MNR staff had was that orphaning was an extremely rare event.” According to the same MNR biologist, approximately 25,000 cubs are born every year in Ontario, of which 10,000 will die for reasons that have nothing to do with hunting (the most frequent causes of cub death include starvation).
With respect to the use of bait, McKay claims that the “availability of human food conditions bears to search for such foods,” citing absolutely no evidence to support his claims. At worst, he ignores the conclusions from researchers in central Ontario, Maine, and the Riding Mountain area of Manitoba that found no evidence to suggest that baiting for the purposes of hunting exacerbates conflicts between bears and people. He also claims that bears are “easy targets” at spring bait sites, a ridiculous statement that proves he has never hunted bears in this (or any other) fashion. It is true that use of bait increases hunter success, but not nearly as much as one might think. Bears are wary by nature, and their keen senses can easily detect a hunter. Baits also gives the hunter an added opportunity to identify a bear’s sex. The spring bear hunt is, in practice, dominated by the harvest of male bears.
Unfortunately, the cancellation of the spring bear hunt reduced the harvest of male bears. These bears are responsible not only for a significant proportion of human-bear conflicts, but also for acts of cannibalism on other bears. This is supported by unpublished MNR data that demonstrates that cannibalism rates can be 2-3 times greater in unhunted areas than hunted areas. The great irony is that, by successfully lobbying for the cancellation of the spring bear hunt, animal rights activists were successful in dooming hundreds more cubs to death at the claws and teeth of aggressive and cannibalistic male bears. This is the price we all pay when wildlife management is dictated by misinformation rather than scientific data.
For more factual information about bear hunting, please visit www.ofah.org/hunting/bears.
Yours in Conservation,
Mark Ryckman, M.Sc.
Senior Wildlife Biologist
Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters