For Immediate Release: April 4, 2002
Contact: Chris Genovali , Ian McAllister

FEDS JOIN PROVINCE TO SELL OUT BC¹S GRIZZLY BEARS
Canadian Wildlife Service and Federal Environment Minister Help BC
Government Pressure EU Into Suspending Grizzly Trophy Ban

VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA - After extensive lobbying by the Canadian
Wildlife Service (CWS), the Federal Minister of Environment David Anderson
and the BC government, the European Union (EU) has decided to suspend its
ban on the importation of grizzly hunt trophies from British Columbia.

³The province would happily watch the last grizzly bear be shot and killed
by a German sport hunter before admitting that BC¹s grizzly bears are being
mismanaged,² said Chris Genovali of Raincoast. ³The BC government continues
to pander to an extremist minority of grizzly trophy hunters despite the
fact that the majority of British Columbians oppose the grizzly hunt. With
their lobbying of the EU, David Anderson and the CWS are now complicit with
the BC government in the ongoing mismanagement of the province¹s grizzly
bears. The EU decision is the triumph of politics over conservation.²

³The contention by CWS that its challenge of the EU ban was justified
because of updated information provided by the BC government is unfounded.
There are no new scientific studies to corroborate the BC government's
inflated grizzly population estimates,² said Raincoast¹s Ian McAllister.
³Raincoast Conservation Society has examined the information that has been
submitted to the EU by the CWS and has found no new data to corroborate the
BC government's recent assertion that there are 14,000 - 19,000 grizzlies in
the province. Just 20 years ago the BC government estimated there were only
6,000 - 7,000 grizzly bears.²

BACKGROUND: On November 28, 2001 the EU banned the import of grizzly bear
hunt trophies from BC, citing that the hunt is unsustainable. Grizzly bears
are a listed species under the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES). UK and German CITES authorities had taken the
lead in calling for an EU wide ban. Over 40 per cent of the grizzlies killed
in BC each year are shot by foreign hunters, with approximately 35 per cent
of those kills coming from sport hunters in EU countries. The CWS went
through a painstaking two-year process to assess whether BC¹s grizzly hunt
and accompanying exports of grizzly trophies can be demonstrated to be
sustainable. This review concluded, on the advice of independent biologists
commissioned by the CWS, that BC grizzly population estimates are
unreliable, and in turn so are allowable kill quotas, particularly given
uncertainty about unreported kill rates, and the impacts of ongoing habitat
destruction. In fact, the report compared BC grizzly management to "a house
of cards ready to collapse." Despite the conclusions of this review, the CWS
has chosen to do a blatant political flip-flop by submitting arguments to
the EU requesting that its import ban of grizzly trophies from BC be
overturned.

Raincoast Conservation Society
______________________________
PO Box 8663
Victoria BC V8W 3S2

(fax)

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