Toronto Star: In the far north where people rely on wildlife for subsistence, polar bear hunters worry
The Toronto Star‘s Paul Watson last Sunday gave readers a long and intimately reported feature on the residents of Nunuvut – the semi-autonomous Inuit land of Canada’s far northeast – whose families depend on hunting and for whom polar bears are vital game.
They live in the Arctic region most likely to stay environmentally hospitable to the white bears for a very long time, but nonetheless could see federal regulations limiting or even stopping the shooting of polar bears for any reason other than self-defense. Nunuvut wildlife authorities say their harvest of about 500 bears a year is sustainable and important to a culture that, while part of the modern world, follows many traditions going back millennia. Now they worry they’ll join harp seal pelt harvesters on the list of people who temperate region environmentalists love to hate.
It’s a good piece, rounds up the factors nicely, and gives plenty of room for the locals to give their version of common sense.
Related, previous story: In March at the Independent in the UK Michael McCarthy wrote on the issue, but relied more on sources who support tight limits on polar bear hunts. This story is the source of the photo above right.
And in the why-to-pack-a-rifle-in-polar-bear-country dept:
- Toronto Star / Canadian Press: Teen hunter trapped alone on ice floe with polar bears / Suffers hypothermia, frostbite during ordeal in which he was forced to shoot animal dead ; The comments illustrate the public’s sharp divide over Inuit hunting of polar bears.
- Charlie Petit
