Manitoba government asked to better monitor moose hunting practices- CP

Source: The Canadian Press
Dec 1, 2014

WINNIPEG _ The Manitoba Wildlife Federation is calling on the provincial government to resume night flights to deter hunters who drive logging roads in the dark and use spotlights to hunt moose.

The province has suspended the surveillance flights for the last two years.

A spokesman for Manitoba Conservation said in an email that over that time, with additional efforts and other surveillance, there has not been a significant change in enforcement.

There have been 18 charges of illegal or unsafe hunting so far this year related to spotlighting practices in Manitoba, the same number as in 2012.

But the wildlife federation says the decision threatens people as well as Manitoba’s imperiled big-game populations.

The federations wants to ban discharging firearms at night, which would make all night-hunting illegal.

Right now, provincial hunting regulations permit aboriginal hunters to determine when and where it is safe to spotlight moose, under constitutionally protected treaty laws.

“The Manitoba Wildlife Federation believes spotlighting should be illegal for all Manitobans immediately, including aboriginal hunters,” says managing director Bob Olson.

He pointed to the case of Sagkeeng First Nation hunter Jason Guimond, 35, who was killed in a shooting accident involving a fellow hunter north of Powerview in 2010.

“The one group of hunters didn’t realize the other group were in there so they came down the trail and saw what he thought was a moose,” says Olson. “It turned out to be the visor on the ball cap of his friend. He fired. He ended up killing his friend. It was horrendous.”

Grand Chief David Harper, of the province’s northern chiefs, says hunting is a treaty right protected by the constitution. He says it’s fiercely defended by First Nations but practised with care, too.

“The elders have taught us you have to make sure you hit it, kill the moose… and you have to track it that night. There’s a traditional law that we can’t let these animal suffer,” Harper says, adding that since moose are largely nocturnal, it only makes sense to hunt at night.

Marcel Colomb Chief Andrew Colomb says surveillance flights wouldn’t make a lot of sense in the north, where there are fewer roads, which make spotlighting possible.

(Winnipeg Free Press)

INDEX: ENVIRONMENT POLITICS