Ensuring a Future for Canada’s Grizzly Bears: A Report on the Sustainability of the Trophy Hunt in B.C.

Published by: David Suzuki Foundation and partners
Authored by: Jeff Gailus, Faisal Moola, Michelle Connolly
Partners: Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

Biodiversity grizzly bears, British Columbia, species at risk, policy and regulation, conservation

British Columbia is home to as many as half of Canada’s remaining grizzly bears, which are an essential part of healthy, fully functioning ecosystems. It has been said that where viable populations of grizzly bears persist, the landscape is being managed sustainably.

Ensuring a future for Canada’s Grizzly Bears: A report on the sustainability of the trophy hunt in B.C. examines the recent history of grizzly management in B.C. and in particular, grizzly mortalities resulting from the legal hunt of this species, both within and outside of parks and protected areas.

This report makes two recommendations to reduce human-caused mortality and protect the habitat that grizzly bears need to survive:

1. Government should enact regulations under the Wildlife Act to ensure that grizzly bears are protected from trophy hunting within B.C.’s parks and protected areas.
2. Government should establish a comprehensive network of core and benchmark Grizzly Bear Management Areas (GBMAs), as mandated in the British Columbia Grizzly Bear Conservation Strategy, that are off-limits to hunting in most of the habitat currently occupied by grizzly bears in B.C. This network should be designed according to scientific criteria, including being protected from all ecologically damaging human activities, providing sufficient habitat to sustain viable populations of grizzlies within their natural range, and being connected on the landscape.