MennoSchaefer / Depositphotos.com
The Government of Alberta has once again allowed hounds to be used in the hunting of black bears. The regulation change initially hit last year, and has been brought back as part of Alberta’s wildlife management strategy, which aims to help threatened caribou populations from predators.
Currently, using dogs for these hunts is legal in B.C and Ontario, and will be permitted in Alberta during September and October, specifically in Alberta’s northern boreal forests and Rocky Mountain Foothills.
Concerns have been brought forward by conservation specialist Ruiping Luo with the Alberta Wildlife Association, one of which being an off-leash concern. In Alberta, dogs can help hunt cougars and birds, and can recover big game once it’s been shot, but the dog has to stay leashed in an area during open season.
Luo says off-leash dogs can disturb and potentially harm wildlife, and that even well-trained hunting hounds have instincts that could cause them to chase or harass other animals, or other species of bear, but the province says there is no evidence of hunting dogs adversely impacting grizzlies.
Conversely, Mark Hall with the hunter advocacy group Wild Origins Canada says black bear hunting helped improve moose calf mortality in Minnesota, and that the idea of bears being chased to exhaustion by dogs is a misconception, as wolves and wild dogs are predators that grizzlies deal with often, and according to Mark, grizzlies look at hunting dogs more as a nuisance.
Last year, 2,431 black bears were harvested by hunters in Alberta.
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