Government-sponsored polar bear hunting in Canada?
Posted January 12, 2012 in Saving Wildlife and WIld Places
The Canadian government, which manages two thirds of the world’s polar bear population, claims its management framework “ensure[s] the sustainability of Polar Bear populations in Canada.” But if the Canadian government is so committed to polar bear conservation, why are provincial governments paying hunters for polar bear hides, fueling the market for these prized pelts?
That is exactly what happens in Canada every hunting season, as the government of the Northwest Territories hands out cash up-front for polar bear hides that will later be brought to auction. What’s more, the Northwest Territories Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment recently announced that they are increasing the price they will pay to $1,750, up from the $400 they offered last year. The move is intended to give hunters another option besides selling their hides to taxidermists at low prices, but nonetheless, it doesn’t exactly send the message that polar bear conservation is a top priority.
Polar bears are protected under national law and international treaty, so Canada’s polar bears can only be harvested by Inuit hunters for subsistence, or by sport hunters guided by Inuit. Subsistence hunting allows the Inuit to carry on their cultural traditions and to provide for themselves in traditional ways, so most communities reserve a large portion of their polar bear quota for their own subsistence hunt, rather than selling them to sport hunters. This is often cited as evidence that the Inuit value traditional subsistence hunting more than the money they would make selling their tags and guiding sport hunters.
But when the government pre-pays hunters for the hides of bears shot in this subsistence hunt, and then sells the hides at auction for up to $11,000 (which also goes to the hunter), it blurs the line between a subsistence hunt and a commercial hunt.
Prices for polar bear hides have risen astronomically in the past several years, with last year’s record high prices already exceeded at an auction this January. As long as it is legal to sell polar bear hides on the international market, as it is with the polar bear’s current status under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), these rising prices will continue to push Canada’s subsistence hunt toward a commercialized, market-driven hunt.
The Northwest Territories pelt payment program may be well intentioned, an effort to make sure hunters receive their fair share of the prices being paid for polar bear pelts at auction, but it has the unintended effect of commercializing the subsistence hunt.
We support a true subsistence hunt and believe that Canada needs to invest in First Nations communities. But what we’re seeing now – using provincial dollars to increase the economic incentives for harvesting an endangered species – is not the right answer.
Please join us in taking action to help protect polar bears by clicking here, or become an NRDC “Den Defender” by clicking here.
Photo credit: em_j_bishop on Flickr via CreativeCommons.org.
Join the Conversation
Comment on this post:
All pertinent comments offered in the spirit of civil conversation are welcome! Off-topic comments, commercial spam, obscenity and other rude behavior are not, and will be removed. We are also required to remove any express or implied statement endorsing or opposing any political party or candidate for political office. Valid email addresses are required. (NRDC respects your privacy; we will not use, lend, or sell your email address for any reason.)
Comments (Add yours)
Heather — Jan 12 2012 10:01 PM
Please stop this death and destruction of these beautiful bears.
p hamlen — Jan 12 2012 11:15 PM
These are beautiful animals who do not deserve extinction from what ultimately results from the greed for excess from frightened, negligent power mongers. The loss of environment that kills off the Polar Bears is a precursor to the death of the environment that supports those same greed mongers.
Anita Z — Jan 13 2012 12:55 AM
Polar bears are such beautiful creatures. & hunting is disgusting. People should be ashamed! We do not need the fur to survive. We have other means of clothings! Educate people! & these politicians shouldn't even have the luxury of all the nice things they can buy!
Crystal Drake — Jan 13 2012 01:13 AM
Please this is just insane.Stop this useless killing
Pat Kiefer — Jan 13 2012 08:05 AM
This unbelievable. I used to think Canada was a better place than others but things have changed.
Greed and corruption seem to always win out over the environment.
John Platt — Jan 13 2012 09:13 AM
Don't forget that those figures are in Canadian dollars. The exchange rate is pretty even, but it translates to a little over $1,700 US.
Arctic Marmot — Jan 13 2012 10:08 AM
For the people who commented on this subject, move to the Canadian north, live here and experience our life where jobs are scarce, food is extremely expensive, flights out of the majority of the communities cost more than flying to Australia from Vancouver and the majority of the people live just above the poverty level and home life can be deplorable.
Who are we (a western culture) to tell another culture how to make money and impose our beliefs on them?
Leave the propaganda at the door and come experience the Inuit/Native culture first hand before passing judgment on the way northern people live.
If you have all the solutions to how things can be changed or improved, then put down your Starbucks coffee and bagel and apply for a government job up here in the territories and come up and solve our problems.
Benoit Ayotte — Jan 14 2012 07:36 AM
http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674nunavut_furs_fetch_record-high_prices_at_recent_auction/
Kelly — Jan 15 2012 01:31 AM
Arctic Marmot has it right, what would you propose our northern people do to survive? welfare? handouts? put them in a program that strips them of all pride, and destroys their community? I find it rich that NRDC and others of their ilk applaud and support our indigenous peoples, and their way of life, as long as they are taking ENGO money to oppose Canadian projects (northern gateway), but condem them on this. What you think they don't shoot bear, and wolf, and deer, and every other fuzzy creature in northern BC as well?
Tomasie Panipak — Jan 16 2012 09:16 AM
Yes, polar bears are beautiful from long distance. Those of you who are in comfortable sitting on soft rear end should start gathering together to come up north to pet a beautiful polar bear. Unless you are a cult and don't care about anything but to distory by cover yourselves as protector. Inuit have lived in the north for thousands of centuries and have never killed off any of their wild animal that they hunt. It is by Inuit traditional knowledge that they prosurve their environment. Those of you living not in the north you don't even know the walls areound you. Inuit know if polar bears get over populated there will be lots of dead polar bears laying on the ground and you'd not even lift a finger to help them, never mind crying you useless voice out to protect them. Inuit have been deprived of their traditional way of life. Couple of centuries ago you whites were dying of, in Inuit land, trying to find a shipping way through the north. That is how you return your graditute by endangering property and lives of people in the north. Inuit are not distoring these creatures we would be if you were going out and distory your plants in your gardens in your yard. Inuit don't want to distinct polar bears but it has been past down to us that if Inuits are provented from hunting polar bears the creator will take them back because He put them here to let Inuit have food.
Alice Diamond — Jan 16 2012 11:46 PM
NRDC makes a very good point here and is clearly taking into account the needs of the indiginous population. For my part, if I had to choose between the survival of animals and the survival of humans the answer is simple: animals. Humans are far less valuable. Y'all are lucky I'm not the one making the decisions.