News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

By LeRae Haynes

The BC Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations announced last week that they are refining their wildlife harvest allocation policy—an action that BC Wildlife Federation Regional President for the Cariboo Chilcotin Jacques Drisdall describes as ‘the government buckling under pressure.’ 

Jacques said that the topic of ‘allocation’ has been a controversial one for several years, with a lot of ‘back and forth’ between resident hunters, guide outfitters and the BC government.

He explained that the allocation policy was signed in 2009 by the government, the guide outfitters and resident hunters, and was to be implemented in 2012. He added that it took three years to negotiate.

“This policy established rules for all regions in the province, with allocation split between different species. When it came to moose, for example, the formula indicated that 75% went to resident hunters and 24% to guide outfitters,” he explained.  

“It gave everybody a chance to work into it for the three years leading up to 2012. Part of the agreement is that if one user group does not harvest their percentage, some of it would be re-allocated to the other group.”

He said that what’s happened locally is that resident hunters have now been allocated an additional 9% from guide outfitters, who didn’t reach their harvest percentage. “This means that in 2012 the guide outfitters would get 18% and the resident hunters would get 82%.

“The guide outfitters were unhappy with the change in allocation. These are tough economic times and some of them couldn’t get the American hunters up here. The cost of travel is up, so they’re just not selling their hunts,” he continued. 

“The outfitters complained: they now want changes to the allocation policy because it’s ‘unfair’ to them.”

He said that the government buckled under pressure from the outfitters and ordered an independent review, resulting in a report by Chris Trumpy, formerly from the Ministry of the Environment.  “He came back and made a bunch of recommendations that favoured the guide outfitters and we came back and said, ‘No—it’s a negotiated, signed deal.’

“The government sat on this for a year, while the hunters and outfitters pressured them to make a decision. Then we’d at least know where the battle lines were drawn. Finally, the press release about allocation came out last week.”

He said that resident hunters haven’t responded yet, adding that this new policy will give flexibility to the regional Resource Management office of the Ministry of Forests to adjust guide outfitter quotas under ‘extenuating circumstances’ which would come directly off resident hunter quotas.

“We’re concerned that this would include ‘back-door deals’ and we’re currently attempting to get some clarification on this. For example, we want to know if this clause will be interpreted the same way in Williams Lake as it is in Cranbrook,” he stated.  

“Our argument is, ‘We negotiated this policy in good faith and you agreed to it. If you can’t maintain your business and need the government to change policy for you, well, imagine what would happen if retail stores and restaurants could go to the government and say they needed subsidizing because of the economy,” he concluded. 

“If you can’t get hunters to buy the hunt, extra allocation isn’t going to do you any good anyway.”

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