News-Miner Editorial
Supporting Canada
Polar bear hunt request isn’t such a crazy idea
Published Wednesday, June 25, 2008
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Stumble It!Who but Alaskans could appreciate the plight of villagers in Canada’s Northwest Territories who fear the immediate loss of polar bear hunting? People, as the Associated Press not-so-objectively reported on Tuesday, who came to our nation’s capital “to make an unpopular argument” for hunters to “kill polar bears for sport.”
Because the United States banned polar bear hunting decades ago does not make the idea of hunting polar bears universally “unpopular,” and it does not mean that the U.S. ban was the correct thing to do. Nor does the term “hunting” equate with “killing for sport.”
The polar bear population in the Northwest Territories is healthy and has supported hunting and an associated northern economy for the past several decades. Could that not have been the case for Alaska if not for the ban?
Canadian citizens remained closely involved with polar bears as a part of their society, economy and culture. Such ties are important beyond measure. These people will do their all to protect the polar bear population because they coexist. All the ban in the United States means is that our citizens remain content to somehow connect with the wilds by donating to the Discovery Channel.
The U.S. hunting ban also assured the world that only the wealthiest would still be able to afford such an experience — “high-roller trophy hunters” as described by the Associated Press.
The problem is the recent decision to declare the polar bear threatened under the Endangered Species Act. That means U.S. hunters may no longer bring home parts of the polar bear. Few hunters would be interested in killing an animal and bringing nothing home.
The Associated Press reported that hunters want the “trophy skins” from Canada’s “Northwest Territory.” To be sure, such a skin would be a prized item that would be representative of what must be an extraordinary experience in Canada’s Northwest Territories, but it’s the skull of the bear that is measured as a gauge of its trophy size.
Canadian officials said the annual hunts support 86 hunting guides and bring an estimated $1.6 million into the villages, affecting a population of about 3,500 people.
The U.S. has managed to recognize that polar bears may be in trouble some day and prematurely labeled the stable population as endangered. Our country should not exacerbate this situation by immediately endangering livelihoods of people in the far north.
It’s quite likely any one of those 3,500 people in the Northwest Territories knows a lot more about polar bears than the collective knowledge in Washington D.C. Our country’s leaders should listen to them.
Community Discussion
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Not impressed.
"as the Associated Press not-so-objectively reported on Tuesday"
You think this biased piece is any better? Hypocrite.
There's a difference - this is an editorial/opinion piece, the AP was supposed to be a news story.
Dear Newsminer Staff,
You correctly state in the editorial that the U.S. listed the polar bear as "threatened," but then you falsely state in a following paragraph that the U.S. "prematurely labeled the stable population as endangered."
Inre the hunting aspects of polar bears, your editorial is off the mark by alluding that the U.S. hunting ban of polar bears assured only the wealthy would be able to hunt them elsewhere. I don't know how you define "wealthy," but if polar bear hunting was legal in Alaska right now, it is more than fair to say that such a hunt would cost upwards of $30,000. I don't know many middle class hunters who could afford that.
In closing, there is no "fix" for this situation you describe. Once a species is listed as threatened, Americans can't import the parts. So I'm not sure just what the Newsminer is advocating here as a viable solution. For the Interior Dept. to reconsider the listing? Congress to change the ESA regulations? As the staff likely knows, hunting lobbies were able to change the regulations governing the importation of polar bear parts to the U.S. under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. But I highly doubt this will happen with the bears now listed as threatened under the ESA.
I'm not saying the bears should or shouldn't have been listed...just that there likely isn't a solution here to the economic woes of the polar bear hunting industry in the NWT. Were I a guide in NWT, I'd be looking to find wealthy Canadian and European clients to fill the spots of those wealthy American hunters.
great piece and you were right on the money, polar bears were prematurely labeled and should not have been listed as endangered. Beware of the eco TERRORIST for they will be our down fall.
Ask any Arctic resident or outdoorsman - the greatest threat to Polar Bears in Alaska is the ever increasing number of old boars. Because hunters targeted big old boars and now there is no legal thinning, the big boars are killing the cubs so the sows will come back in heat for breeding. Then, since there is no economic value for the bears, they only represent a threat to life near the villages and are under even greater threat of death. Funny how "protection" so often leads to "depletion." But then, to bunny huggers, a cub getting ripped apart by an old boar is better than a swift death by a guided hunter's bullet.
One of the more arrogant, biased, ridiculous editorials I've read in the News Miner in a long time, and not just because of the subject material. Arrogant elitism isn't reserved for the liberals anymore, apparently.
This is the second time within a week's period that I simply can't believe the crap the news miner's editorials is supporting. I've never felt like this before about the DNM. Did you guys just have a major change in staffing? Phew, *bad* decisions on your part. I'm getting to the point where I don't even want to read hard copies or online versions of this newspaper anymore.
Within this past week, the news miner has demonstrated that this newspaper blatantly supports Big Oil. And blatantly supports the killing of polar bears for sport. Just how more out of touch can you get? You guys court the readership of folks like roofman and darkhorse who don't have a problem at all with killing a threatened species just for sport? Folks that would denigrate people like me as "bunny huggers" for believing that gun-toting, trigger-happy men *aren't* the best judges of what should happen in nature?
News miner, your readership has just dropped by one. Me.
Not reading the crap you've been putting out lately is the only way I can object to the crap you've been putting out lately.
Adios.
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