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Sustenance hunting a nightmare to manage |
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Tuesday, 18 December 2007 |
On the surface, the announcement Friday that Albertans, who rely on wild meat for sustenance, can now apply for a special hunting licence seems like a step in the right direction.
The licence will be available to qualified applicants free of charge from any Fish and Wildlife District office and will allow hunters with no other means of providing meat for their families to hunt within the law.
The goal of the new licence is directed at legalizing hunting that was taking place outside the law in order to provide for meat for families who may be facing tough financial situations.
Unfortunately there is no way of knowing just how many families were illegally hunting to acquire meat because they certainly weren't stepping forward to broadcast their hunting. So it would seem a difficult task for the Fish and Wildlife department to determine just how much of a need there is in the province for the new hunting licence.
While the idea in its simplest form is not a bad one, the management of the program could prove difficult. The province has to know that there will be hunters who will take advantage of the new licensing as a means for extending their trophy hunting year round.
The licensing is limited to moose, elk and deer, and the number of licences issued by each district office will be determined by local need and the local game populations.
The obvious snag in the plan is just who determines the need and the number of game available. Fish and Wildlife has indicated in the past that it lacks the resources to conduct up-to-date game counts, so how will they now determine game counts in order to assign sustenance hunting licences?
For the most part deer populations throughout the province are plentiful but it's not quite the same story for moose and elk. It will also be next to impossible to determine true need when it comes to approving the licensing. Protection of Privacy laws in Alberta limit the information Fish and Wildlife officials can seek from applicants. So how will true need be determined?
It might have been a better move for the province to work with hunters to provide a means for wild meat to be provincially inspected and donated to local food banks.
Economically it makes no sense for a hunter, who doesn't have the financial means to provide meat for their family, to see wild game as a cheaper alternative to store bought meat. Anyone who has ever gone hunting knows it's not cheap to put together a hunting trip and cover gas, ammo and other associated costs.
There is also the concern for the advantage the licensing, which will be issued year round, will give hunters when it comes to trophy animals. Younger animals provide the best meat but what is to stop hunters from going after the trophy animals.
Unless Fish and Wildlife plans to inspect all of the animals post-hunting the door will be left wide open for hunters under the special licensing to have their pick of the trophy animals. |
