New patches support our work to stop trophy hunting
Purchase a new Raincoast patch and help us purchase the Southern Great Bear tenure.
We have raised 52% of our $1.92 million goal to stop commercial trophy hunting in the Southern Great Bear Rainforest tenure. Being our longest running campaign to date, we’ve already purchased five tenures, with the support of our First Nations partners, protecting coastal carnivores in over 38,000 km2 of the Great Bear Rainforest.
To get us closer towards our goal, all of the sales of our newly launched patches will go directly towards the Southern tenure purchase. Represent Raincoast on your adventures by sewing a Raincoast patch on your favourite gear. Our sew-on woven patches are made in Canada and measure 4”x1.4”.
About our Safeguarding Coastal Carnivores campaign
Our ultimate goal is to eliminate the commercial trophy hunting of large carnivores in the Great Bear Rainforest, which will sustain a naturally functioning ecosystem with natural prey/predator relationships on an enormous landscape scale. This will facilitate vital scientific research on coastal carnivores and provide sustainable economic opportunities in nature based tourism, especially for local and Indigenous communities.
The tenure system and trophy hunting
Like a few other jurisdictions in North America, BC adopted a tenure system to manage commercial trophy hunting. When it was set up in the mid 1900s, the principle was that if a hunter from outside of BC wished to hunt big game in BC, they were required to hire, and be accompanied by, a BC guide. The tenure conferred exclusive rights to guide foreigners (non-BC residents) to kill 61 species within these (often very large) specified areas or territories. This allocation of wildlife was intended to support BC businesses. They were initially granted for a nominal licence fee.
These tenures became extremely valuable as trophy hunting opportunities, particularly for large carnivores, and especially grizzly bears, became rarer and therefore more expensive. Foreign hunters, willing to pay upwards of $35,000 to kill grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, cougars, and other carnivores, and more than $10,000 for ungulates like mountain goats, bighorn sheep, and moose, dramatically increased the value of these tenures. The ability to amalgamate and transfer these tenures, created a market for them and depending on size, productivity of habitat for certain species, and accessibility, some reached values in the millions of dollars. While some remained family businesses through a couple of generations, others were bought by clubs of foreigners, essentially becoming private hunting reserves.
You can help
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.
We investigate to understand coastal species and processes. We inform by bringing science to decision-makers and communities. We inspire action to protect wildlife and wildlife habitats.
