Conservation campaign aims to save BC’s grizzly bears, one bite at a time
As the grizzly trophy hunt opens this weekend across BC, Raincoast and Denman Island Chocolate will be launching a “Grizzly Bar” to help raise funds to protect bears in BC’s Great Bear Rainforest. Proceeds from the Grizzly Bar will directly support the efforts by Raincoast Conservation Foundation and the Coastal First Nations’ Bear Working Group to stop trophy hunting on BC’s central coast.
Supporters will also have the chance to win a trip aboard Raincoast’s research vessel the Achiever, to “hunt” for coastal grizzly bears in person. The competition is open to anyone who donates to the campaign or posts to social media with a picture of their #GrizzlyBar by July 1.
“Last fall, I had the opportunity to sail the Great Bear Rainforest on board the Achiever with Raincoast and I witnessed grizzly bears in their natural habitat. That trip inspired me to work on this campaign and to offer the same trip to someone who, like me, is inspired by conservation,” said Daniel Terry, president of Denman Island Chocolate. “The goal is to save bears, and to see these magnificent animals up close is the experience of a lifetime.”
“We currently own the commercial trophy hunting rights in an area over 30,000 km2 in the Great Bear Rainforest and stand poised to finish the job and purchase the remaining trophy hunting tenures in the GBR. We’re happy to partner with Denman Island Chocolate to raise the necessary funds to save the great bears,” said Chris Genovali, Raincoast’s Executive Director.
On April 1st the bar will be available at BC Bear Day in North Vancouver. “The purpose of BC Bear Day is to help raise the public’s awareness about bears in our province, how we can co-exist with them locally, and how we can help protect them. Along with the North Shore Black Bear Society and Raincoast, our focus this Saturday afternoon is to engage families and children of all ages with storytelling, crafts, face painting, and nature walks all focused on bears,” said Marja de Jong Westman, Instructor at Capilano University.
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Raincoast’s in-house scientists, collaborating graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors make us unique among conservation groups. We work with First Nations, academic institutions, government, and other NGOs to build support and inform decisions that protect aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and the wildlife that depend on them. We conduct ethically applied, process-oriented, and hypothesis-driven research that has immediate and relevant utility for conservation deliberations and the collective body of scientific knowledge.
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