Photos reveal Western Canada’s wolf kill program is really a trophy hunt
GOLDEN, British Columbia, March 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Conservation organization Wolf Awareness is releasing photos they obtained showing government-contracted helicopter staff in trophy hunting-like poses displaying wolves they shot down in Alberta’s caribou recovery program.
The first photo shows a man propping up a dead wolf on his knee, with the weapon laid across the wolf’s chest in front of a Bighorn Helicopters Inc. aircraft. The second photo shows a different man holding the head of a dead white wolf so that it faces the camera with him in front of the same aircraft.
The photos are said to be a few years old, but aerial gunning of wolves continues in numerous caribou ranges in Alberta as a last-ditch and controversial effort to halt caribou declines. It also has been occurring or is proposed to occur in 11 caribou ranges in British Columbia, another province where Bighorn Helicopters Inc. has been contracted to kill wolves.
In Alberta’s caribou conservation program, ministry staff poison wolves with strychnine and the ministry has incentivized wolf snaring by registered trappers in addition to contracting aerial gunners.
The Alberta government has so far refused to indicate where and when the killing is happening this year and sidestepped a Freedom of Information Request filed by Drew Yewchuk at the Public Interest Law Clinic at the University of Calgary requesting ‘All records relating to the wolf culling program in Alberta, especially those documents addressing costs’.
Alberta Environment and Park’s response to Mr. Yewchuk indicated that the ministry does not calculate the costs of any of the individual activities, including wolf killing, that are part of Alberta’s $4,189,250 Woodland Caribou Budget for 2018/2019.
Strychnine has killed a minimum of 250 “accidental” victims from 12 non-target species in the Grand Cache area since 2005, including at-risk grizzly bears. A government memo from 2012 indicates that trappers reported accidentally killing caribou and grizzly bears when wolf snaring.
Press release, photos and contact information available at: https://www.wolfawareness.org/press-releases
Contact information:
Lisa Dahlseide B.Sc. – Alberta based Conservation Biologist with Wolf Awareness – 587-439-8267 – [email protected]
Hannah Barron – Conservation Director of Wolf Awareness – (647) 567-8337 – [email protected]
Drew Yewchuk – Public Interest Law Clinic, University of Calgary – 403-220-6733 – [email protected]
