Return of the Alberta Grizzly Hunt
Minister of Forestry and Parks Todd Loewen has owned shares in a hunting tourism company.
The self-proclaimed “most freedom-loving politician” in Canadian history has done it again.
Premier Danielle Smith has given Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen the freedom to issue a ministerial order allowing a few lucky Albertans to hunt grizzly bears deemed threatening towards humans.
Hunting grizzly bears has been outright banned since 2006, owing to their dwindling numbers. In 2010, grizzly bears were listed as a threatened species and the province updated its Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan accordingly.
“[Grizzlies] do a lot for the ecosystem. They have a big role to play in managing ungulate populations,” Devon Earl, a conservation specialist for the Alberta Wilderness Association told The Orchard, referring to hoofed mammals, such as moose, elk, caribou, and deer.
Grizzly bears’ digging habits help farmers till soil and disperse seeds, she added.
The species also has major cultural and spiritual importance for Indigenous Peoples. But the ability to hunt grizzlies has financial importance for the minister and his pals.
According to his Jan. 12, 2024 ethics disclosure, Loewen made at least $5,000 in dividends from Red Willow Outfitters, a company in Fairview, Alta., which provides guided hunts for bears, deer, moose, elk, wolves, coyotes and waterfowl, in 2023.
According to ethics guidelines, MLAs must disclose income sources of more than $5,000, but aren’t required to disclose the full amount.
The Canadian Press first reported Loewen’s ownership stake in this company last year, raising questions about the propriety of his appointment as the minister who oversees hunting regulations.
Earl said that even if Loewen divested his shares, his deep industry ties still make him a problematic choice to lead the ministry.
“He still has ties in the outfitting and hunting community, so there is a strong possibility that he could be biased towards the perspectives of those people, versus the perspectives of wildlife bear biologists who are very familiar with the science,” said Earl.
The government, naturally, depicted this change as a matter of public safety.
“Since 2005, there has been eight people killed by grizzly bears and 62 grizzly bear maulings which is why Alberta’s government is taking action to protect Albertans by creating a new wildlife management responder network,” Forestry and Parks spokesperson Pam Davidson told Canmore’s Rocky Mountain Outlook newspaper, which reporter Jessica Lee astutely noted, didn’t directly address the regulatory changes.
There were 897 instances of livestock losses since 2016, which have “greatly impacted Alberta farmers,” Davidson added, without explicitly attributing these losses to grizzlies.
“They’re just using fear to push their agenda,” Nicholas Scapillati, head of the non-profit Grizzly Bear Foundation, told The Guardian, adding:
No one was consulted in this decision – not the biologists, not the independent conservation groups, not the First Nations. Were the government’s own scientists consulted? It’s an absolute slap in the face to the province’s grizzly recovery plan. We know how to lower the risk of dangerous interactions with bears – and it’s not going out and killing them.
The recovery plan called on the government to hire multiple regional human-wildlife conflict specialists, who are specially trained in conflict prevention.
“Unfortunately, those positions have not been hired. We did have one provincial human-wildlife conflict specialist. He retired in 2022 and that role also has not been replaced,” said Earl of the AWA.
Loewen’s changes, Scapillati said, turns “hunters into hitmen.”
Loewen, for his part, denies he’s resurrecting the hunt at all, because it only targets “problem wildlife.”
Earl said that “bringing in members of the public to shoot and kill and keep grizzly bears that are deemed problem bears … sounds like a hunt to most people.”
NDP critic for environment and tourism Sarah Elmeligi, a bear wildlife biologist who represents Banff-Kananaskis in the Legislative Assembly, said in a statement that allowing individuals to kill grizzly bears won’t protect public safety.
“Killing bears doesn’t reduce conflict, it reduces populations,” Elmeligi wrote. “How can that be acceptable when at the same time we are committed to recovering the population? Again, a UCP minister is choosing to serve himself and his friends rather than Albertans who have spoken in support of grizzly recovery time and time again.”