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Honourable Terry Lake,

I recently read an article on wolves in the Vancouver Sun October 1/12 edition stating that 'Ranchers Call for Cull in Northern BC' and thought somebody should make some people aware of the wolf populations and some other fish and wildlife concerns in this area of the Province.

People may already know that wolves are having a devastating impact on the ungulate population (hoofed animals) here on the Central Coast and as well in the Cariboo-Chilcotin.

Our sensitive ungulate populations on the coast include mountain goat, blacktail, whitetail and mule deer and moose and all these stocks are way down and in very poor shape.

Various packs of wolves can be heard howling in the evenings around here and most every anchorage on the Central Coast at one time or another.

With the heavy snowpacks we have received the last couple of winters the mountain goats have been driven down into the timber out of the alpine where the large packs of wolves can easily access them. Mountain goat are quite vulnerable when the wolves can reach them in the late winter and spring and the wolves can easily wipe out a family of mountain goats off a mountain in their winter range.

Mountain goats do not repopulate easily given the extremely vertical terrain they evolve in and once they are wiped out, off that particular mountain, there is question as to how long it will take their population to recover, if they ever do. I have never seen a mountain goat swim an Inlet so to repopulate some areas can be an issue. King Island is one example where there seems to be a reasonable amount of goat habitat and there is certainly mountain goats on the Dean and Burke Channels ranges but there is no goats on King Island. Where there traditionally has been healthy populations of mountain goats that we have viewed many times in the past..we see virtually no mountain goats around the Central Coast now.

Currently there is no active commercial, or any other type of harvest targeting wolves on the Central Coast in m.u. 5-7, 5-8 and 5-9 to establish a balance in the predator/prey relationship. There has been literally no wolf hunting in Coastal Region 5 since about 2002 and I am concerned that the guide/outfitter that is now holding certificate # 500906 is not harvesting any wildlife as required according to the rules and regulations of the Wildlife Act that entitle the Guide/Outfitter to maintain this certificate.

The wolves are now having a free unregulated reign over the ungulate population. The equation is out of balance now favoring the predator and the ungulate populations are suffering simply because we have far too many Wolves in the area with no legitimate harvest of any species to my knowledge within the boundaries of this certificate or what is known by some as the 'Great Bear Rainforest'.



There is a reasonably liberal annual hunting season on wolves province wide but virtually nobody other than trappers target wolves specifically. Wolves are not edible and their hides are not worth much so there is little or no initiative for hunters to harvest them when hunting for wild game and I understand some hunters actually do pass them up when they have opportunity for a shot.

Given wolves are more recently sought after by a select few photographers on the coast one has to weigh out the balance of whether or not it is acceptable to sacrifice the entire ungulate populations so a few photographers can get an image of a scrawny coastal wolf. This is simply a red flag issue considering that if there is enough wolves around that they are posing long enough to be photographed -- they are obviously habituated and abundant.

Wolves are simply a very efficient killing machine and there is good reason the old timers and settlers kept them thinned down around their homesteads. It is a not a pretty sight to see wolves take down a majestic game animal or livestock and the animal certainly dies a horrific slow agonizing traumatized end while bleeding to death and being eaten alive. Many places we go where we used to view moose, deer and mountain goat in the past, all we find now is packs of wolves, wolf scat and bones.

Given as well that many people nowadays choose not to eat meat there is little initiative for some of these people, who are likely responsible for creating this scenario, to be concerned about ungulates. It is all about bears and wolves now; when was the last time you saw a picture of a kid, calf or fawn? Ungulates (deer, moose, goats, sheep, caribou and elk) have always provided meat and sustenance for people that live in rural areas who choose to eat meat and harvest their own wild game. First Nations have always depended on Ungulates for a food source and to my knowledge do not harvest wolves for sustenance.


If there was a bounty on wolves perhaps the hunters would be more inclined to help with the management of this predator and this may be an effective long term step forward in a progressive ungulate enhancement initiative. Perhaps it is time to reinstate a bounty on some of these predators like the old days as some neighbouring Canadian provinces have recently put in place. This may be the most desirable way to deal with this problem and a cost effective way to at least help manage the issue, rather than some of the cost prohibitive and undesirable alternatives used in the past.

The Wolves certainly will kill all the ungulates they can as well as beaver, marmot, grouse, ptarmigan, migratory birds, fur bearing and domestic animals until there is no more food for them to eat. Only then will the wolf population start to die off naturally and only then will the Ungulate and other populations be able to begin a recovery. This can take decades and is a very slow process for this biological cycle to evolve and the mountain goats that live in the steepest, inaccessible terrain may never recover.

The prey the wolf targets for consumption is ironically the same prey that humans target for sustenance including and not limited to salmon which coastal wolves eat as well. I have never heard of anybody eating wolf meat so to be able to maintain a desirable, healthy, edible food source of preferred free run organic wild game we need to manage our wildlife stocks and survival rate of wild game to be able to afford a harvest on the ungulates and upland bird populations.  Nobody eats wolf meat and the wolf does not generate or provide anything significant toward the viability or economy of the province.

I have personally witnessed, and many reports are coming in from reputable sources of large packs of wolves in the Cariboo, Chilcotin, Coast and there is no question whatsoever our Ungulate populations are suffering drastically from wolf predation. I have found many huge piles of wolf scat that contain bone, hooves, mountain goat hair, deer and moose hair, beaver fur among other pieces of hide, feathers and furbearing animals. As well recently in the Bella Coola Valley I have seen wolf tracks that are larger than I have ever seen anywhere in my last 40 + years in the bush.

There are far too many wolves in these areas now with their unchecked populations no doubt still increasing. Wolf predation on the ungulates is in a severe situation now with very few fawns, kids and calves surviving and in my opinion, our ungulate populations are at a dangerously low level, if not crashed. Perhaps it is time for our Fish and Wildlife Managers and Conservation Officers do something about this before the eco-systems crash altogether. Perhaps some reasonably drastic measures need to be put in place regardless of what people that want to 'save' everything seem to think.

I do realize the public outcry that would come with regards to suggesting a cull on some of these species but perhaps the longterm outcry and outcome would be far more significant when all the ungulates are gone. Having these environmentalists that want to 'save' everything dictate what can and cannot be harvested is very likely going to destruct our fish and wildlife eco-systems. The beetle kill pine and extreme loss of habitat in the Chilcotin watersheds is compounding the decline and sensitivity of the ungulate issue and the lack of water retention in the coastal watersheds are causing flood issues that are wiping out our salmon runs.

The lack of pacific salmon returns on the coast is a huge issue for the grizzlies, black bears and eagles that evolved on pacific salmon and that are in fact now starving to death from lack of salmon returns. Something progressive needs to be done about our habitat so that it will continue to support our fish and wildlife.

We cannot 'save' everything as some radical environmental groups would like to do simply so they can receive donations for their questionable cause so that they can spend their time photographing wolves and bears. These groups are having far too much influence with their media campaigns on the management of our wildlife resources. They are very good at convincing offshore corporations to send them money to support their ideals and it is a very lucrative way for them to support themselves. Some of their hearts may be in the right place to 'save' everything but their ignorance of the fish and wildlife issues only brings us to the dilemma we face today with too many predators.

It is likely in our best interest, in my opinion, to figure out what species are most desirable and have sustainable priorities like ungulates and wild salmon, that are obviously more important to save, and then initiate a controlled selective cull on those predators that threaten these more desirable species that are under harvest pressure.

At the mouth of all the fish creeks up and down the coast all I see is seals, sea lions and Merganser’s devouring what salmon that are left returning trying to make it up the rivers to spawn. At the end of the river is the poor skinny coastal grizzly trying to find a fish to eat so he may stand at least a chance of making it through a six month hibernation with no food. It is only common sense to realize that if you thin out the seals/predators a little then the survival rate of the salmon will go up and ultimately that grizzly may survive. If salmon were abundant, as they used to be, then perhaps these predators would not be an issue. Given the salmon stocks are in poor shape or non-existent the predators on the remaining stocks, I feel, are most certainly an issue.

The Mergansers and their very large families of chicks are in every fish creek from one end to the other and are constantly doing their best to eat all the salmon fry that try to escape out to sea. One may be surprised how many salmon fry these winged predators consume in their unthreatened lifetime on the creeks, from the tide flats to the headwaters. Who eats or harvests Mergansers?  Nobody that I know of eats Mergansers as they are too fishy tasting and there is no season on them that I am aware of.

I would suggest there should be a limited cull on seals and mergansers to help alleviate this predation problem and allow some escapement for the salmon stocks. At the head of South Bentinck Arm the Noeick and Taleomy River watersheds are at best receiving very poor returns in an area that no doubt had excellent returns in years gone by. Snootli Creek Fish hatchery in Bella Coola and their staff are doing an outstanding job trying to enhance and maintain our salmon stocks on the Central Coast and the survival rate of the salmon is of course paramount. Perhaps there should be some support for them on the predator issue to help with escapement and survival rate of the salmon stocks.

Hundreds and hundreds of seals are sitting on the boomstick’s at the creek and river mouth’s on the Central Coast and in the Gulf of Georgia.  Does anybody have a count on them on the BC Coast? How many pounds of fish do seals and sea lions have to eat a day to maintain their mass? It is a wonder any salmon survive the gauntlet of predators at the creek and river mouths. I do not know anyone who eats seals and sea lions and what are they utilized for?

Perhaps it is time to have a real hard look at what predators are targeting the fish and wildlife species that are in serious decline, before they disappear. A person certainly does not have to have a university degree in biology to assess that the state of the fish and wildlife stocks are in very poor shape and realize something significant needs to be done to enhance the remaining stocks.

In the interior ranchers are suffering many losses from wolf predation on their livestock and last year here in the Bella Coola Valley a large pack of wolves consumed a domestic cow as she was in the process of giving birth to her calf. This is obviously an ongoing and common practice for wolves at calving time in the spring and is resulting in a alarmingly high rate of mortality for the newborns, wild and domestic.

By all accounts and reports from local helicopter pilots, fixed wing pilots and boat captains and people who live here, work in the field and have history here, the wolf population is far too high and so is the seal population. These predators needs to be assessed, regulated and thinned so that the wild ungulates and wild salmon populations can survive. Certainly the thinning objective would not be to wipe out the predators mentioned, only to cut back their excessive numbers so that the dwindling species have a improved survival rate.

It is a shame that it may already be too late for many populations of the majestic mountain goats to recover on the Central Coast due to wolf predation in the last few years. If some form of thinning is not initiated very soon on the wolf population we may stand to lose our sensitive ungulate populations as well.

It has taken how many hundreds of thousands of years for the wild pacific salmon to evolve and in my short lifetime I have seen the wild salmon stocks go from an incredibly bountiful resource to creeks and rivers void of any salmon.

It is unfortunate that a letter like this needs to be written and it may ruffle a few feathers but if it is not written then in a few short years people will be questioning why nothing was done when something could have been done. People need to be made aware of these issues as the fish and wildlife, that are in serious decline, cannot speak for themselves and once they are gone they may be gone forever. Furthermore, this scenario is negatively affecting many livelihoods and about all we have left in this area for occupation is tourism that goes hand in hand with our natural fish and wildlife resources. I have never seen so many skinny bears and poor salmon returns as I have in the last few years and there is no question some of our fish and wildlife stocks are certainly in jeopardy.

Please respond to this letter and advise the writer at your earliest convenience what our ministries and managers are currently doing to resolve these issues.  

Hopefully some proactive regulation and enhancement will be initiated soon to help mitigate the issues and allow our once abundant fish and wildlife populations to recover.

Regards,

Leonard Ellis
Bella Coola, British Columbia

 

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