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Conservation group buys out hunting rights in B.C. rainforest to protect wildlife

Click to play video: 'First Nations hope hunting ban will protect rare Spirit bears'
First Nations hope hunting ban will protect rare Spirit bears
Two First Nations along B.C.'s Central Coast hope a new hunting ban will help save the Spirit bears. B.C.'s new hunting and trapping regulations prohibit black bear hunting on Gitga'at and Kitasoo/Xai’xais land in the Great Bear Rainforest. The two First Nations say the move will help protect Spirit bears -- a rare form of black bear with a genetic mutation that turns its fur white – Jul 21, 2022

A British Columbia conservation group says it has purchased exclusive hunting rights to a quarter of the Great Bear Rainforest on the province’s north and central coast to protect wildlife there.

The Raincoast Conservation Foundation says it took two years to raise $1.92 million to buy the 18,000-square-kilometre tenure off commercial hunting operators.

Raincoast’s guide outfitter co-ordinator Brian Falconer says the group has fulfilled all aspects of the purchase except the physical transfer of the hunting licenses, a process that is being completed.

Click to play video: 'Environmentalists say government hasn’t followed through on protecting Great Bear Rainforest'
Environmentalists say government hasn’t followed through on protecting Great Bear Rainforest

Raincoast says in a statement the purchase makes the environmental group the largest hunting tenure holder in B.C., with six tenures covering more than 56,000 square kilometres.

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Falconer says the acquisitions allow Raincoast to protect wildlife while “lighting a path” to the development of an ecotourism economy “not dependent on killing and extracting things.”

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The group has been buying hunting rights in the province since 2005, after a 2001 moratorium on grizzly bear hunting was overturned.

 

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