There are difficult jobs, and then there is being a BC Conservation Officer Service officer. With a rise in the number of wildlife encounters in the area, and despite pleas from every wildlife organization to eliminate attractants such as garbage and food, conservation officers are sometimes met with the incredibly difficult task of destroying bears and other wildlife.
Recently, a mother bear and her two cubs were trapped and killed after they ripped the screen door off a house at the top of Nootka Street and went in through the back door.
The official line from BC conservation is that relocation does not work. Once wildlife has become conditioned to our food and garbage, relocation is a futile exercise that results in bears ultimately coming back, or infringing on other bears’ territory, according to conservation.
Meanwhile, officers are vilified for following orders and carrying out their job duties, some of which unfortunately include killing bears.
Officers who fall out of line tend to lose their jobs, as in the case of Bryce Casavant, who was fired in the summer of 2015 after defying orders to kill two bear cubs in Port Hardy, and instead took them to a veterinary hospital.
In that case, the officer was correct that the bears could be reintroduced to the wild, were not habituated to humans, posed no risk to public safety and did not fit the government’s guidelines for destroying wildlife.
A controversial predator-kill policy was under review even before public outcry over Casavant’s firing, but nothing significant has been changed, according to the BC Ministry of Environment.
Government officers must be allowed to make judgement calls without fear of disciplinary action or backlash from the public. The sad truth is sometimes the call they need to make is that wildlife needs to be destroyed, but that should always be a last resort, not the go-to solution to every wildlife encounter.
This fear that conservation officers will take every wildlife report and turn it into an animal carcass needs to be addressed. Former BC SPCA Powell River and District Branch manager Brandy Craig let her fear result in the loss of her own job when she lied to a conservation officer in order to protect two deer fawns she had rescued and was trying to relocate.
Perhaps if everyone involved with wildlife conservation and preservation had more lenience from government we could find a way to save animals instead of shooting them.
Jason Schreurs, publisher/editor
