low.

Imagine that a new restaurant
opened in town and it was great.
The decor outshone anything ex-
isting. The food was exquisite
and the prices were unbelievably

The Maitre D’~ was _ per-
sonable, amiable and poured so
many compliments your way
that you just couldn’t help but
go there“every time, All else pal-
ed by comparison and this in-
credible new competition drove
fringy businesses under.

The barely-surviving
restauranteurs joined forces and
marched down to a meeting of
the Aldermen to bare their fangs
at this intrusion into their do-
main.

.The Aldermen studied the

‘complaints but they were not im-

pressed. They said almost in
unison, ‘You can’t stop pro-
gress. In business there are win-
ners and there are losers’.

It is after all a well known ax-
iom of the free enterprise system
that competition, though it
might lead to bankruptcy, keeps
prices down and service up and
satisfies more consumer wants
than monopolism.

So it is with wildlife manage-
ment in British Columbia.

It has become a business.

The fringy competition are the
wolves, with the guide outfitters
being the hot shot new
restauraunt in town and the En-
vironment Minister being the
Aldermanic analog.

This business caters to money,
which is in turn supported by the
philosophy of this government
that all things shall enjoy a level
of status determined by financial
profit.

Hunting has become big
business, and wildlife have
become commodities to be
marketed. ,

Too bad that the wolves can’t
compete with those sports who
wish to drag moose and caribou

home, or with helicopters and.

shot guns or 1080 poison. All’s
fair in love, war, and business.

Why should this be so, |
wonder?

Perhaps it is in part due to the
mentality that dominates
wildlife management in B.C.
that derives itself from the
philosophy of the wildlife
managers themselves; that hun-
ting must be sustained at all
times?

Not only that, it must be sus-
tained at a particular level or
they, as managers, have
somehow failed to do their job.

Competition for these jobs is —

keen, and if they cannot keep a
sustained level of harvest of

by Jorma Jyrkkanen

ungulates, then they are labelled
as failures in the inner circles.
I blame this mentality on
several factors,
One factor is that most of the

wildlife managers in B.C. are’

themselves hunters, and indeed
are hired partly because they en-
dorse the position that game is
to be harvested and protected
for harvesting.

Thus, they have a pro-harvest
intervention philosophy rather
than an ecosystem protectionism
point of view,

Another reason is their ar-
rogance about human ability
and need to interfere with
nature.

These guys all think that using
their powerful computers,
research skills, hard data,
theories and models on wildlife

‘‘Wolves have created
moose and caribou
herds that are compris-
ed of the genetically
finest individuals
possible...’’

dynamics, and management
strategies they can out-perform
nature, and so they play the
game: Beat Nature.

It’s a compelling game, once
started impossible to quit.

The computer seems to come
alive in your hands and god-like
powers seem to flow from it to
thine meddlesome fingers.

Then, our elected politicans
change the game, via political in-
tervention, into “Beat Nature for
a Buck’,

In their arrogance they’ve
forgotten a few things.

One of them is who they work
for. The other is nature herself,

There is a little old lady out
there, who pays taxes, votes,

Terrace Review — Wednesday, March 2, 1988: 1 -

To kill the competition: wolf control

Wolf kill to go ahead

Measures to reduce wolf populations will be resumed this
winter in the Muskwa Valley area of northeastern British Colum-

bia.

Environment and parks Minister Bruce Strachan said a
thorough review of the program has shown that removing some
of the wolves each year has benefitted local populations of
moose, caribou, elk, and Stone sheep. The review also indicated
that high ungulate populations can be sustained through removal

of fewer wolves.

**As a result, wolf control will continue at a reduced level and
on-going inventory work will be used to assess the need for

future control,’’ Strachan said.

“Our government is committed to responsible stewardship of
this area, which is considered to have the best habitat for these

species in the province.”

“‘This project was designed to maintain the balance between
wolves and their prey at a high level, and the review indicates
that so far it has proven successful,’? the Minister added.

The project review, which involved assessing the results of wolf
control after three years, was undertaken to ensure that the
technical basis of the project was sound, Strachan said.

“So far it has demonstrated a clear relationship between the
density of wolf populations and the survival of the younger prey

animals,’’ Strachan said.

‘“‘The program will continue with the full involvement of the
Ministry’s wildlife management and research staff, and we will
encourage input and cooperation from the scientific and
academic community at large,’’ Strachan concluded.

raised a bunch of kids and
helped build this great, though

_apathetic nation, who is every

bit as important a Canadian as
Joe Wildlife Manager,

She differs in one important
respect.

She likes live wolves. She likes
to know they are out there, lop-
ing, panting, happy.

She likes to hear them howl

and likes to see their tracks -

along the river and she likes to
know there’s playful pups at the
den, whining, whimpering, yelp-
ing, 0

She feels related to them by
proxy through years of affec-
tionate interaction with
domestic relatives of wolves, her
pet dogs, who have been truer
than hubby.

This woman doesn’t want
wolves killed and she finds it
downright offensive that our
government would use her tax
money for that purpose.

The civil servants and
ministers that want to do this of-
fensive deed have forgotten that
they also work for her.

They have let their own biases
lead them to a deed which is tan-
tamount to profit-based
autocratism. .

As well as this woman, there is
an ecosystem out there.

In that ecosystem, wolves
have been doctoring the moose
herd and caribou herd for
millenia, and the relationship
that they have evolved is almost

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one of mutualism as opposed to
predator and prey.

By preferentially culling the
sick, the weak, the old, the in-
jured, the unfit, the over-
numerous who are damaging
their habitats, wolves have
created moose and caribou herds
that are comprised of the
genetically finest individuals
possible, who incidentally are
numerically below the habitats’
carrying capacity, leading io
abundant food for all. .

Wolves are thus an important
part of the natural selection en-
vironment of their prey species.

Their numbers historically
cycled up and down in relation
to each others’ numbers, and
this was the balance of nature.

By interfering with this rela-
tionship by killing wolves, we
will, if prolonged, harm the
herds and the quality of the in-

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True, caribou may be taking :

an unnatural amount of mortali-
ty from wolves whose numbers
are sustained by artificially
elevated moose herds.

However, caribou may in part
be declining due to reductions in
arboreal lichens from loss of
mature timber — more so than
from high wolf levels — and
there is little evidence to suggest
that caribou will respond
favorably to reduced predation
pressure if winter habitat is the
key issue.

One of the Beat Her for a
Buck’? chauvinisms of our
wildlife managers and their sup-
porting business-like politicians
is that like the economy,
harvestable ungulate numbers
should remain at current levels
through management or they
should grow each year through
enhancement.

To keep wildlife harvest in ac-
cord with this philosophy when
moose and caribou are having a
cyclical downturn, they have to
intervene by killing the competi-
tion.

Any reduction of ungulate
hunting rates immediately trig-
gers an outcry from those with a
vested interest who stand to lose
profit if nature ceases to be as
benevolent as she once was.

If they choose to kill the com-
petition, the wolves, then they
risk heat from Mom and the

millions like her, who also pay

taxes and want wolves.

To do nothing results in heat
from guide-outfitters and ran-
chers and frustrated local
hunters.

Taking the heat seems to be
unavoidable, so how then does
one choose a strategy for
wildlife management?

Little old ladies can be told
they are stupid or they can be
‘educated’, and that should shut
them up, but those guys with
money have friends in high
places and they won't shut up,

continued on page 21

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