Saving Great Bear Rainforest is Island man’s mission

CARA MCKENNA Nanaimo Daily News / Times Colonist
SEPTEMBER 22, 2013

Protection Island resident Brian Falconer is on B.C.’s central coast protecting animals from a gruesome fate as the fall season of the grizzly trophy hunt continues.

Falconer said 200 to 300 grizzlies are killed by trophy hunters every hunting season in the spring and fall, when provincial regulations permit hunters to go after bears waking from hibernation or feeding by streams.

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The controversial grizzly trophy hunt was recently in the spotlight when it was revealed NHL hockey player Clayton Stoner, a Port McNeill-born defenceman for the Minnesota Wild, shot a bear in May.

Stoner issued a statement saying he had grown up hunting in B.C. and had applied for and received a grizzly-hunting licence through a B.C. limited-entry lottery.

Raincoast recently asked the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations to investigate the incident, calling it “implausible” that Stoner legally killed the bear

“I don’t believe that was a legal hunt. The hunting tags are only available to residents of B.C.,” Falconer said.

“I recently spent time with another hockey player in the NHL who plays with another team in the U.S. He couldn’t vote in B.C. because he wasn’t a B.C. resident despite the fact that he was born and raised (in the province).”

Falconer said trophy hunting is “ridiculous” and compares it to “coming up to someone at home, breaking into their front door and shooting them at the dinner table.”

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To read the full story visit the Times Colonist website http://www.timescolonist.com/ island man’s fight to save greatbear

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