Bear Baiting

In the spring of 2001, CPAWS alerted Manitobans to the “war on Riding Mountain” that was being waged with the support of the provincial government. In Manitoba, bear-baiting is legal and even promoted by the province’s Wildlife Branch. Elk-baiting, while illegal, was taking place on a massive scale since enforcement was virtually non-existent, especially in the area around Riding Mountain National Park.

CPAWS launched a national campaign to stop the unconscionable practice of baiting around Riding Mountain because of the severe impact it has on the health and integrity of the wildlife populations of the park.

There should be some places in Canada where wildlife can be studied and appreciated – or just plain exist – without interference. Most Canadians believe that national parks are such places. National parks are among the few places where, by law, nature comes first.

Park authorities everywhere are trying to keep bears away from garbage and human food, for their own protection and that of people. Yet Manitoba’s Wildlife Branch claims that the way to reduce bear/human encounters is to control bear populations through hunting, and so they permit the placement of over 100 garbage baits (rotting carcasses, stale doughnuts, etc.) around Riding Mountain National Park, weeks in advance of hunting season, to habituate the bears and make them easier to hunt as they come out of the park to feed at these baits.

The impact of bear-baiting around a national park is not about bear populations. It is about bear ecology and the mandate of a national park to protect it. Because bears travel widely, nearly all of the park’s bears are negatively affected by the practice of bear-baiting. Their migratory patterns, feeding habits, age structure, sex ratio, and social relationships are all distorted. Not to speak of their longevity. The only major study done on Riding Mountain’s bears reported that virtually 100% of their mortality was human cause, mostly from hunting at bait stations. So in the only place in Manitoba where black bears are supposedly protected, few are allowed to grow old and die a natural death.

Elk-baiting (the strategic placement of alfalfa bales next to elevated shooting stands all around the park’s border) has similar negative effects on the park’s populations. It was also a disaster waiting to happen for Manitoba cattle producers, which unfortunately has come true (see Riding Mountain - Bovine Tuberculosis). Baiting tends to bring wildlife and domestic livestock into contact, which encourages the transmission of disease back and forth.

So what happened?

As a result of our information campaign, then Manitoba Minister of Conservation Oscar Lathlin received more than 1,000 letters of protest from all across Canada.

On elk baiting, Manitoba Conservation drafted new regulations that allowed stronger enforcement of the law by plugging existing loopholes. The need for these regulations was made more urgent by the Bovine Tuberculosis outbreak, which was being exacerbated by baiting practices.

On bear-baiting, after being told by both the minister and department officials that they were seriously looking into this issue and would be bringing forth improvements, we learned with great disappointment that only a few cosmetic changes were actually made to the regulations.

A two-week limit for placing baits prior to the opening of hunting season has been implemented. This does little more than codify existing practice and will have virtually no impact on the number of animals taken at these stations during the hunting season. (In effect, it is telling outfitters not to feed the bears when they are in hibernation.) A new requirement to remove baits within five days of the end of hunting seasons applies only to crown land, whereas most baiting activities take place on private land.

Finally, the distance for baits from the park boundary has been increased from 30 to 100 metres. Because bears have a keen sense of smell that allows them to find food kilometres away, this will have little effect on the end result.

Another objective of the CPAWS campaign was to get the two levels of government to actively co-operate on joint management of the area around the park. There was modest progress on this front as well as a Riding Mountain Ecosystem Working Group consisting of senior staff from both governments was established. This could be just window dressing, but CPAWS will work hard to ensure that it is not. The struggle to protect the park continues.