VICTORIA – British Columbia ended the controversial trophy hunt of grizzly bears in the province in August of 2017. Recently however, the province surprised both the bears and the citizenry by ending the hunt throughout all of B.C.. As an extra measure of protection, they also equipped the grizzlies with AK47 automatic rifles.
A spokesperson for the bears said that they: “… are absolutely delighted with this turn of events.”
A 2017 B.C. auditor general’s report criticized the province for not managing its grizzly population effectively, stating that the greatest threat to the bears was habitat loss, not hunting. The bears, however, disagreed with the report and lobbied for the rifles.
The bears were successful in their demands due to surprising support from the B.C. public at large. The province held consultations throughout B.C. and although 78 per cent of more than 4000 respondents recommended that the hunt be shut down completely, 99 percent opted for arming the bears, calling it a “social values issue.” The bears agreed with this, 100 percent.
There are approximately15,000 grizzly bears in B.C. and the province recently issued a tender to suppliers to purchase 16,500 AK47s. A government spokesperson explained the overage in the tender.
“We built in a ten percent fudge factor, just in case,” he said. “As the bears haven’t used these equalizers before, we figured that some might possibly get damaged and there are also enough extra for replacements in case a few get lost along the way. Source: FNT Staff
Photo credit: Original images at: OffGridQuest , Defenders of Wildlife , Evike.com, Wikipedia ,
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