Polar Bear Hunting Critized In Australian Sunday Paper

[magnum308]

Hi I'm from Queensland Australia and just read in the Brisbane Sunday paper, "The Sunday Mail" see http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/, a twisted article condemning Polar Bear hunting called "This Barbarity is called sport" on page 24 by Jane Fryer. Upon doing a little surfing on the net I found a similar article punblised by the Sun newspaper in the UK, see http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005590173,00.html. Once again the cheapest form of journalism is to pick up an article from someone else that is likely to create a sensation and appeal to simplicity of the masses.

On searching the web a bit on Polar Bears it appears that toxic poisoning (from Europe and the US) and global warming causing the ice caps to melt are a far greater concern to the scientists who really know than this "barbarity" called trophy hunting that probably singled handedly contributes more to funding polar bear conservation and management than anything else.

I would be interested in hearing from any of those really informed people (hunters/guides/outfitters) in Canada (or anywhere else where polar bears are legally hunted) on the real facts of polar bear numbers, hunting and conservation/management.

Cheers & God bless,
Magnum

[7x57]

This is like me condeming kangaroo shooting in Austrailia, or using dogs on Hogs down under...

Sentimental garbage from people who need something real to complain about.

The bears are having trouble adjusting to the lack of Ice recently, but hunting them has, for many years now, been heavily regulated... Plus the shear cost and logistics of getting to where they live precludes, heavy hunting. 

They have recently upped the quotas on bears near Churchill to deal with the increased numbers of problem bears there but this is due more to climactic conditions than population increase.
 I have a feeling that this is another issue like the Grizzly hunt here where everyone who lives or works in the bush incuding biologists are saying there are too many bears but they are shouted down by activists who live in major cities!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And are well funded!!!!!!!!!!

[upnorth]

just to correct... there is no quota on polar bears in manitoba... they are a protected species. no season at all. In fact, conservation officers will only kill them if there is no other choice. They have spent alot of money upgrading the polar bear "jail", which houses nusance bears that come into town until the ice freezes on hudsons bay. In the northwest territories, aboriginal bands are given 1 or 2 tags a year, which they may sell. Those hunts are tightly controlled by the government, with natural resources accompanying the native guides and the hunter. So don't be fooled..... the bear is greatly respected by the natives, and well protected from overhunting by the government.

[7x57]

I tried to post a response to this twice now. I was wrong about Churchill.   Right about the hunt being well managed and right to be wary of animal rights groups in other continents, who twice now, have munged up bear hunting in Canada.

Once in BC, Grizzly hunt ban, brief, but a ban nonetheless.  Plus, the spring blackbear hunt in Ontario I think it is still in place, years after being pushed through by well funded crazies in other countries.

Now they're setting their sights on polar bears eh? Great!  We lose again!!!!!!!!!!!!