A coalition of 60 environmental groups are demanding the province stop its cull of BC’s wolf population.
A petition backed by environment groups Pacific Wild and the Valahalla Wilderness Society already has more than 173,000 signatures online.
Conservation Director Ian McAllister with Pacific Wild says killing wolves en masse won’t save caribou herds as intended.
He says it’s people who are responsible for their declining population, with mining and back country snowmobiling.
“Habitat degradation and human encroachment on caribou habitat is the primary threat to their existence and survival,” he says. “The provincial government has clearly not done enough to protect caribou habitat.”
McAllister says the province is only blaming and killing wolves to show the public they appear to be handling the situation.
“They’re shifting the blame to wolves, who did not cause this issue, humans did, well in excess of a thousand wolves will be killed at the expense of millions of taxpaying dollars, it simply won’t bring the caribou back,” McAllister explains.
“Instead of saying no to issuing more oil and gas leases and saying no to recreational activity in critical caribou habitats,” he says.
The province plans to shoot as many as 184 wolves from helicopters this year.
(Image courtesy PacificWild.org).