Disgusting Blood-Sport Brought Back By Premier Doug Ford

Written by: Heather Clemenceau

*Caution – this blog post contains graphic images.

I didn’t think it would be possible to be more disgusted by Doug Ford’s government. Lobbyists must have donated serious money to DoFo’s cash for access “stag and dough” event, to benefit Ford’s developer, police friends, because he is reinstating/expanding a cruel dog “sporting” event. “Bill 91, the Ontario government’s massive Less Red Tape, Stronger Economy Act, 2023, was ordered for third reading in the Legislature on Thursday, May 11, 2023. Schedule 14 of the act would repeal and re-enact section 35 of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, 1997, to provide for new regulations concerning the issuance of licences for new and existing train and trial areas. These regulation changes would include granting new licences through a one-time 90-day application period and allowing licences to be transferred to new owners.”

This type of “training” technique is one that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNR) has been phasing out since 1997: dogs running down terrified captive coyotes, foxes and rabbits who are kept penned in tiny enclosures in between torture sessions where they are mutilated. There are now 33,000 members in the Ontario Sporting Dog Association, which lobbied the government over the past year on the training and trialing licenses. (David McNew/The Associated Press).

Hunter grins while his dogs attack a coyote

These facilities should be illegal – this is animal cruelty plain and simple, and disgusting that anyone would refer to it as a “sport.” Additionally, dogs that are forced to participate can also suffer from injuries or even death at these events. Penned dog hunting licenses are banned in every other province. Moreover, how will dogs who are trained to be vicious, distinguish between coyotes, foxes, and rabbits and innocent smaller breeds of dogs, especially in provincial parks?

Newmarket Today published this excellent letter by Sharon Willan of Aurora, and she follows up with a request for readers to contact their MP:

“If you found your child torturing a cat, dog, bird, or any animal, you would be very concerned. In the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatrist Association cites harming animals as a sign of conduct disorder. The technical term is Zoosadism, pleasure derived from harming animals.

Why then is penned dog hunting considered a sport for adults? Wild animals are taken from their environment, placed in small cages and held in barns. They are released only to have dogs chase them to exhaustion and possibly kill them. If the wild animal survives, they are recaptured, placed in cages and sold to another penned dog organization to be hunted again and again.

In 1997, penned dog hunting was banned. However. there are 24 still operating in Ontario. Instead of closing these down, the government of Ontario is expanding the licensing so that more animals can be tortured.”Penned hunting is widely condemned, controversial, and causes extreme and unnecessary stress, suffering, and death to wild animals, while posing threats to public health and safety at the same time.” All other provinces and many states in the U.S. have banned this cruel practice but the extreme segment of “hunting lobby groups like the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters and the Ontario Sporting Dogs Association are pushing the government to reverse the ban so that new dog hunting pens can open up, and existing pens can sell to new owners.” (Animal Justice, June 23, 2023)The members of these associations should read about the mental disorders associated with this torture of animals.

What kind of people have we elected who would allow this kind of antisocial behaviour to be the law? What are we teaching our youth about respecting life including the lives of animals?

Anyone who has owned a pet has grieved over their pet’s illness and pain. They have seen the suffering the animal is going through. Wild animals are no different — they suffer. The dogs who are forced to join in the hunt also suffer. Under normal circumstances, they would not be part of this heinous act.

If you are appalled about this law, please write to your local MPP and demand an end to penned dog hunting.”

Sharon Willan
Aurora

Society should do everything possible to protect wild animals, they have a place within the ecosystem and should never be subjected to this kind of torture, for the amusement of humans.

Find your MPP here

Short Hills Hunt Makes Mockery of Social Sacrifices By Others

Written by:  Heather Clemenceau

(Please note that this blog includes graphic images)

Doe teats tacked onto a tree, for reasons known only to the hunters.

Now, more than ever, the Short Hills Hunting Protocol is revealed as a useless, non-binding document whereby neither party to the protocol have  the means nor the will to adhere to or enforce it. It makes no effort to address the current COVID pandemic as do other government health advisories for hunters. Restaurants in Niagara had previously required ID to prove that patrons were local, but anyone can attend this hunt without concern for coronavirus restrictions.  Occupants of parked cars mingled freely with each other, while the Six Nations have declared an outbreak crisis after an upsurge of cases. 

The Quebec government, published a guideline specifically to be used by hunters during the pandemic:

• Follow physical distancing measures by keeping a two-metre distance with people who do not live at the same address as you;
• Favour practicing your activity close to your main residence or in your administrative region;
• Travel with people living at the same address as you. Otherwise, plan on using more than one vehicle (car, ATV, etc.);

The Government of Canada also created a risk-mitigation tool that addresses outdoor activities, including hunting:

“If there is known COVID-19 activity in the community, the likelihood that it could be introduced into an outdoor space or recreational activity is higher. The risk of COVID-19 introduction and spread is also presumed to be greater if a higher proportion of individuals visiting the outdoor spaces or participating in the activity comes from outside of the community.”

In previous hunts, cars from out-of-province have been observed, and the staff of Ontario Parks who host the hunt also drive in from outside of the area. The hunters own published videos show that inside the hunt zone they don’t bother to observe reasonable social distancing precautions.  Hunting in Short Hills is possibly the only place hunting occurs without any references to precautionary principles in the time of COVID.

Every year dead or dying animals are found on or close to property lines, whether private homes or the Scout camp.  A study conducted by the Oklahoma Fish and Wildlife Agencies  found that approximately 50% of deer that were shot were never recovered. Some deer survived for up to 5–7 days before succumbing to their wounds. The protocol doesn’t address the issue that hunters are therefore often shooting towards a boundary (as evidenced by the number of animals found on or near property lines). Homeowners were forced to confront the gruesome remains of this doe, who was partially consumed by coyotes after a botched kill shot (doe evidently shot while fleeing).

After each hunt, the users of the park inevitably discover sickening blood trails and guts left near or on main trails. Perhaps the hunters would like to reposition this bio-mess to an area off the main trails? Leaving a gut pile in close proximity to a multi-use public trail is not the least bit respectful to other users but is hardly surprising. There is a culture of intolerance in the hunting community in general towards others user of wildlife areas and this is a prime example. It IS distressing that this is left in an area with high foot/recreational traffic and it attracts predators to the area where people are often walking with dogs. You can argue that scavengers will clean it up quickly, but that offers no protection to anyone walking their dog who happens to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time – it is currently coyote breeding season.  People also don’t want to drag their dogs out of the gut pile. This is no different than leaving garbage behind in the park.  Short Hills is a park and not an area set aside for hunting.  Biking, walking, and skiing (and not hunting) are why the park exists!

One of the gut piles revealed disturbing remnants of the kill, left for the casual park user to discover at their leisure.  The two fetuses discarded in the snow are evidence that the deer have good availability of food resources, that there have been good weather conditions for plant growth, and they are likely in better-than-average body condition.  Reproduction rates are linked to the plane of nutrition (defined as the quantity and quality of food intake).  Because of the high metabolic cost of pregnancy, it is reasonable to expect females with larger body size (i.e., more fat) to be better suited to tolerate body fat loss, and thus produce multiple fetuses per pregnancy, thereby going a long way towards refuting the oft-claimed opinion that the deer feeding requirements have eclipsed the ability of the park to provide. 

Mature evergreens are also being heavily damaged for the purpose of creating hunt blinds. Ontario Trails has rules for a minimal impact approach – because this is a park and not a raw forest.  At least one hunt in Ottawa Hills (Ohio) that was otherwise not opposed by nearby residents, was ended in part due to the forest damage caused by the hunters. 

Within one hour of the commencement of the hunt on November 3^rd, a hunter was observed moving through the Hydro corridor in the area of several private properties. Ontario Parks staff attended and removed him.  Hunt blinds are also being set up outside the hunt zone.  The difference between poaching and hunting is one of permission. 

Hunting accidents occur between hunters all the time. Add any park visitors who aren’t hunters, and you have a recipe for disaster. Two non-hunters (one with a dog) were able to gain access to the park during an active hunt despite assurances in The Protocol that the entry points would be virtually impregnable due to the vigilance of MERC and the MNRF. Was the hunt stopped under the circumstances? Nobody can/will say.

Park damaged to create hunt blinds

Hunter being removed from unauthorized area

Hunt blind outside the hunting zone

Unencased bows.

Hunters walking out of and back into the entrance with their crossbows in plain sight.

Opening the parks to hunting is unnecessary, unsafe, and introduces whole new layers of bureaucracy and expense. Leave the parks alone so that they can function as they were intended: to preserve the land and wildlife for future generations to enjoy.

The protocol for the 2020/2021 hunt makes absolutely no mention of coronavirus precautions, even though the Government of Canada published a risk mitigation tool for outdoor spaces.

Click to access short-hills-harvest-protocol-2020.pdf

Smoke and Mirrors Campaigns Attempt To Demonize Short Hills Park Activists

Written by:  Heather Clemenceau

Please note that this blog contains graphic images

At one time an individual had to do something explicitly racist to be declared one. Now, anyone who chooses not to fall in line with prevailing “social justice” opinion about the Short Hills Park deer hunt can be smeared with this horrible epithet.  Agitators on Twitter and Facebook have attempted to silence the anti-hunt sentiment by doxxing posters, contacting their employers, sending threatening private messages, while simultaneously wasting the time and resources of the police by demanding that they investigate Facebook posts because they are tasteless, offensive, or demeaning.  While it is pretty clear when speech threatens violence to a specific person, it is less apparent that random offensive statements should be something the police should investigate.

In addition to amplified outbursts of hostility from “social justice warriors,” journalists and other media outlets now share increasingly diverse forms of disinformation with ease.  Additionally, there are few avenues to demand accountability, and there is a lack of skepticism about what is read and watched.  Inflammatory accusations about the anti-hunt demonstrators have long been deemed credible by people who have no first-hand knowledge of the hunts. It is therefore important to have a toolbox to evaluate claims independently.

The Freedom-Of-Information Requests Prove Police Conducted No Investigation Into Facebook Posters:

In response to several demeaning social media posts opposing the hunters, Grant LaFleche of the St. Catharines Standard wrote in November 2019 that:

“The Ontario Provincial Police are investigating racist and violent social media comments directed at Indigenous hunters in Niagara to determine if they break hate crime or other laws, The Standard has learned.

The OPP decided Wednesday to look into the Facebook comments posted on the page of the Niagara Action for Animals that directed racist slurs at hunters taking part in the annual deer hunt at Short Hills Provincial Park. Some of the comments also called for the deaths of the hunters, asking them to kill themselves, shoot each other or for them to be murdered.”

According to FOIA documents from both the OPP and the NRP, only one social media post was ever reviewed and it was dismissed straight-away as a non-issue.  These social media posts are not actionable – there are no credible, direct threats to any individual.  The OPP by their own admission, did not even open a case.  There was nothing to document.  Not even Facebook removed the posts (Niagara Action for Animals voluntarily removed them).

 

PDF available here – https://heatherclemenceau.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/opp_foia.pdf

PDF Availalble here – https://heatherclemenceau.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/nrp-foia.pdf

The Academic Paper that Accuses Police and Demonstrators of Assault (but fails to provide evidence):

In a paper titled “Fake Vegans,” Authors Legge and Taha make numerous claims about a Short Hills Park hunt and protest they observed, but without substantiation – namely that both police and protesters were assaulting the pro-hunt group.  When approached for a comment about this paper’s claims, St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik’s office could not find any evidence of police harassment or assault. The Mayor’s office even stated that the Haudensaunee hunters and their supporters have a dedicated police liaison with which to discuss pertinent issues related to the Short Hills hunt.  Anti-hunt demonstrators are quite used to being accused of assaulting people by now, but I’m sure the police were very interested to learn that they had been accused, in an academic paper of all things, of assaulting protesters.  Where is the proof?  If it’s as you say in your paper – you directly observed it first-hand – why can you not provide evidence?

 

Read the full paper here – https://umanitoba.ca/faculties/social_work/media/V6i1-04_legge_taha.pdf

 

Read the full paper here – https://umanitoba.ca/faculties/social_work/media/V6i1-04_legge_taha.pdf

 

Response from the Mayor Sendzik’s office when asked by email whether the NRP were aware that they had been accused of assaulting the hunt supporters.

Sea Shepherd’s Opposition To Hunting As a Philosophical Stance Against Anthropocentrism:

Captain Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, is frequently accused of racism since some of that group’s anti-whaling campaigns target ethnic groups in various countries.  He recently addressed the proposal by the Makah to resume whaling.

“Sea Shepherd opposes the killing of whales by anyone, anywhere, for any reason.

The Makah have a treaty with the United States that they say allows them to kill whales.

Elizabeth Warren has stated that she supports to resumption of whaling in the United States by the Makah. These whales do not belong to Elizabeth Warren nor do they belong to the United States or the Makah. The whales belong to the Cetacean Nations, they belong to themselves, independent of any claims by any hominid population.

Killing a self- aware, highly intelligent, socially complex sentient being, is murder.

Sea Shepherd’s position has never been anti-Makah, our position has been and always will be pro-life for all species of whales.

Sea Shepherd presently opposes illegal whaling by Norway, Japan, Iceland, Denmark, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and in the United States We have never discriminated on the basis of nationality, race or culture.”

Now clearly there is an obligation to protect vulnerable populations of whales, while deer are not endangered animals.  The best available science, which is available to the Haudenosaunee as it is to everyone else, is that hunting only temporarily decreases deer population, leading to an increase within a year or two, due to the compensatory rebound effect. Watson’s objection to whaling (or for our purposes, deer hunting) is completely agnostic – it includes opposition to all forms of whaling, whether committed by commercial whalers or tribal interests.  Sea Shepherd has undertaken campaigns against the Soviet Union, Iceland, Norway, pirate whalers in Portugal and Spain, the Faroe Islands, Canadian seal hunters, as well as the Makah.  It is a fact that Watson consistently insults all groups partaking in whale hunting with equal opportunity, regardless of race or origin.  Antagonists that aim to demonize both Sea Shepherd and other animal activists must invent non-existent emotionally charged accusations of racism and hate crimes where in fact none exists.

Video Footage of the Barricade at the Pelham Rd. Entrance to Short Hills:

Variously we’ve heard that the “stalls” that happen at the entrance to the park are 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or even that they are some kind of permanent blockade, as part of an effort to have those opposed to the hunt undemocratically removed from the protest. The “Fake Vegans” paper also claims that the stalls occur anywhere from “5 to 15 minutes.” The best evidence that these claims are exaggerations for effect comes from the pro-hunting faction themselves.  Their own video evidence from 2015 shows that the stalls are barely even 5 minutes, and sometimes hunters’ vehicles aren’t stalled at all. The video does not support any claims of foul, demeaning, or racist taunts levied at the pro-hunting group either.

The video clearly provides that the stalls are 5 minutes or less, and the helpful narrators even acknowledge this throughout this 29 minute video:

6:12 mark – “It’s been 5 minutes.”

8:00 mark – Vehicle arrives – is waived through at the 11:30 mark

11:30 mark – Vehicle arrives on camera – is waived through at the 12:43 mark

13:00 mark – Vehicle arrives on camera – is waived through at 14:11

14:30 mark – Vehicle arrives on camera – is waived through immediately

14:50 mark – Vehicles arrive 14:50 – are waived through at 16:50 mark

17:00 mark – Vehicle Arrives 17:00 – Helpful narrator announces at the 19:32 mark that “it’s been 5 minutes.” The vehicle waived through at 21:58

23:00 mark – Two trucks arrive simultaneously – they are waived through at 23:23.

23:40 mark – Truck arrives at 23:40 – It is waived through at the 24:20 mark on the video.

24:30 mark – Another truck arrives at 24:30 – it is waived through at the 27:40 mark.

 

As debunker Chris Hitchens’ famously wrote, “that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”  With all the available smart phones recording every protest at Short Hills for 7+ years, why has no unequivocal and undeniable video evidence emerged of these alleged assaults? Several years’ worth of FOIA requests I ordered from the NRP and OPP have not revealed any assault charges levied against anyone.

We don’t own this rock. The choice is between endorsing suffering and death or opposing it – for all species. People have the freedom to object to the Short Hills deer hunt without being branded racists – hunting in the park is not an activity that’s traditionally been granted to ANYONE, therefore, no one is purporting that indigenous people should be denied an activity in which others are legally partaking. All concerns have been addressed not towards “who” is doing the hunting, but that it is occurring at all in a “No Hunt Park.” There is an urgent need to protect the integrity of the park; this cannot and does not always look like politeness.

Journalists are supposed to work in the service of truth.  Instead, they often promulgate disinformation. It’s unfortunate that some social media commenters chose to express themselves inappropriately and with poor impulse control, but these were deemed not criminally-actionable.  The hunt supports and media do not have any legitimate indictments against the anti-hunt demonstrators without hyper-partisan selection of “facts” at the expense of fairness. What their disinformation and doxxing campaigns seek is to impact agenda setting, muddy the informational waters, and intimidate critics of the hunt into silence.

 

This buck was shot and left wounded. He ended up on private property about 200 ft from a private residence in the vicinity of Short Hills Park during the hunt. He was frozen into the ground and could only be moved with a tractor once the ground thawed.

Shot in the forehead. Head was kept to report to Ministry. More than 70 deer were killed at the 2019/2020 hunt. Numerous others were observed wounded but this information is not recorded by the MNRF. The duty to gather accurate hunting-related stats is left to residents and other “citizen journalists.”

The base for the sacred fire has been casually left behind as just another piece of garbage by the Short Hills Hunt Supporters. 

 

The Big Give

I hated my mom’s fur coat. A few months ago, it became mine.

Mom’s raccoon coat was, to her, a symbol of class and status. But for many more people, fur coats don’t represent either of these things.  After my mom passed-away in April, I found that being left the coat created something of a moral dilemma – I didn’t want to wear it, and both my aversion to waste and sentimental attachment to something belonging to my mom prevented me from throwing it away outright. We’re urged to recycle whatever we can, but hate the fashion-driven consumerism of cruelly derived animal fur coats, so we don’t want to create further demand by putting the coat back into the marketplace either. Although the deadly deed has long been a fait accompli, we can still try to make amends to the animals who lost their lives to become vanity pieces.  Until you inherit a fur coat that you don’t know what to do with, you don’t realize that it’s much more of a grave stone than a fashion statement.

Websites are replete with tips on how to recycle unwanted furs, including turning them into re-purposed teddy bears or donating them to wildlife rehabilitation centres. You would think that the answer to this conundrum is easily solved because it seems orphaned babies who have lost their mothers like to snuggle up to fur, according to some rescuers. The familiarity of fur likely plays a key role in the animals’ overall health and well-being, and may improve their chances of survival when they are eventually released back into the wild.

What was once brutally taken from them can now be used as a source of warmth and compassion. But despite the encouragement from most SPCAs and groups like the Humane Society, most rehabbers don’t actually want fur coats because they are difficult to clean. Even Born Free USA has updated its website to advise that it currently has “too much fur” to send to sanctuaries.  In addition, the coordination of the donation was off, because by the time I took possession of the coat in June, most rehabbing animal babies have grown and are ready to leave on their own, and there is little demand for fur scraps for warm nesting materials in the summer.

Procyon Wildlife rehabbers in Beeton, Ontario, who have more than 200 animals to take care of, from skunks, turtles, chipmunks, raccoons, fawns, and coyotes, agreed to take the coat off my hands.  Various people I exchanged conversations with promised they could cut it up in short-order and send me a few photos of the coat’s new beginnings as an enrichment item for rehabbing animals. A win-win for all!

~Epilogue~

Dear readers, I wish I could tell you what ultimately happened to this coat.  Despite the good intentions of a few people, I wasn’t able to determine if it was ever used as intended. I was really looking forward to seeing a few pics of it being used somehow!  But at this time, no one at Procyon seems to know where it is or what happened to it after I dropped it off.  I could have asked my husband or a friend to cut it up in smaller pieces in advance if it was too time-consuming for volunteers to manage.

I firmly believe that once you give away something, you have little right to complain about what does or doesn’t happen to it.  That said, philanthropic giving is about developing relationships.  If you can’t use the donation, no matter what it is, then communicate with the donor and explain that you can’t use the gift at this time, due to a lack of personnel, time, or whatever.  It’s always a good idea to use in-kind gifts in the way suggested, especially when they are intended not for people but animals, and that by not doing so could disappoint or alienate the donors of such gifts. They would not have donated to your organization if they didn’t have some interest what you do….

 

Short Hills Deer Hunt – Remains Of The Day

Written by:  Heather Clemenceau

Photos: Short Hills Wildlife Alliance

I find that there is a bizarre disconnect between the public face that hunters would like to present and the disturbing findings observed after the hunt is over. Nothing calls attention to this incongruity like a wounded animal and discarded remains scattered throughout the park. I’m not sure what enrages me the most, the MNRF’s ongoing assault on wildlife or the flagrant hypocrisy of doing it under the cover of something called either a “herd reduction” or “traditional hunt.”  The hunters and their supporters continue to make broad pronouncements and allegations about anti-hunt demonstrators when in fact all people should be free to express themselves without fear of being labelled in a derogatory fashion.  The disconnects seen in much of the reasoning by the pro-hunt cause are so enormous that it feels like climbing Mt. Everest without oxygen.  (Please note that in order to depict the visceral nature of the hunt,  photos included herein are GRAPHIC and DISTURBING).

With the 2017 hunt now concluded, the MNRF has tallied up the kill numbers for this year.  On at least one day their tally does not even agree with number counted by the police, so how transparent or honest/accurate is the reporting?  These numbers do not include the 4 deer that were found either abandoned or wounded outside the hunt zone and found dressed on private property, awaiting delivery by the MNRF to the staging area.  This year, vehicles with license plates from Quebec and even Florida were observed entering the park to kill deer.  I guess we should assume that there are no raw forests in either Quebec or Florida that can host deer hunting anywhere other than in a NO HUNT park in environmentally significant area?

 

Day 1 (November 11) – 17 deer were killed – 8 male and 9 female, two of which were fawns

Day 2 (November 12)  – 6 deer were killed – 2 male and 4 female deer were killed (The Ministry refused to tell us how many were fawns)

Day 3 (November 25) – 15 deer were killed (although protesters and police counted 21 by visual confirmation)

Day 4 (November 26)  –  4 deer were killed – MNRF won’t disclose, but 6 deer were counted in a single truck

Day 5 (December 4)  – MNRF won’t disclose, but 6 deer were counted in a single truck

Day 6 (December 5) –  1 deer was killed

 

Unpacking the hypocrisy of the hunt and its proponents:

The hunters have long maintained that hunting in the park is a food sovereignty issue and they use all parts of the deer. So why are there so many skins, heads, and gut piles strewn throughout the park well after the hunt?  Why was a disembodied deer head shuttled in and out of the park over several days – why has the body apparently been abandoned in a food sustenance hunt? And why was a deer carcass abandoned at the foot of Swayze Falls, where it has remained for several days and is possibly still there?  For many people, the type of sporting contest apparently taking place in Short Hills (the “Big Buck Competition”) is representative of an anthropocentric philosophical perspective – the antithesis of what we are told is indigenous hunting.  Paradoxically, the taking of trophies is a product of the colonial/capitalist forces that the pro-hunt groups claim they despise.   An animal trophy reminds us, on a subliminal level, of the wealthy hunters depleting the landscapes on foreign lands in order to assert their ascendancy and control.

In another ironic exchange,  the (satirical but unintentionally accurate) Walking Eagle News makes the point that anyone taking hunting selfies puts ego over responsibility.  The number of “selfies” taken for the Big Buck Competition held in Short Hills suggests that many participants are more interested in obtaining trophies than in adhering  to “cultural traditions.” I doubt that most people who truly engage in subsistence hunting spend a lot of time on Facebook.

 

 

Once again this year, the pro-hunt camp complained that our signage is somehow racist (any kind of trigger that makes a hunt support angry or defensive is considered racist – even our last names evoke feelings of distrust, prejudice, and blame).  However,  unlike a person’s name or place of birth, beliefs can be argued for, tested, criticized, and changed. The more pugnacious hunt supporters turned their attention to our clothing – we should all expect a turn in the cage with someone from this group either online or IRL.  On this day, the supports are affronted by a protester wearing a “skull” face shield.  A complaint was received by police on the scene November 25th, asking that the protester be removed because of his attire.  Why is a face shield commonly sold in outdoor stores considered to be objectionable when worn by an anti-hunt demonstrator?   It seems perfectly acceptable however, when donned by a hunter.

 

 

In previous hunts it has been observed that some hunters attempted to walk into or out of the park after it commenced, with unencased bows.  Joe McCambridge, former president of the Ontario Conservation Officers Associations (OCOA), stresses that: “If you are going to hunt until the end of legal shooting time, you must take a proper case with you and encase your firearm after [sundown]. This includes bows and crossbows.”  I wonder what McCambridge would think of bows that are completely forgotten in the park? This bow was accidentally left in the park as-is, by a careless hunter after the sanctioned hunt in 2016,  and was found by someone walking the trails the next day.  It was turned over to the police.

The deer in the album below were found both in the park and well beyond the park boundary and buffer zone on private property, further evidence that the hunt is not safe and that boundaries simply aren’t respected.  All images are from the current 2017 hunt.  The dead deer at Swayze Falls was abandoned with an obvious hunting-related injury.  The MNRF appears to frown on the killing and abandonment of deer when it occurs in provincial parks that are not Short Hills. How many  other deer suffered and died on their own, undiscovered by anyone?

Some hunt supports have claimed that whenever injured deer are found,  it can only be due to poachers.  If so, then the poachers were hunting in the park at the same time as the Haudenosaunee hunters,  in which case the MNRF is unable to effectively close the park to people who are not permitted to be there.

 

 

All photos below were captured within Short Hills Park or the Hydro corridor over several hunts.  The doe with the neatly assembled entrails and head was tracked by her blood trail from the park to the Hydro corridor.  All the rest of the entrails and various remains were found within the park on a main hiking trail about an 8 minute hike from the Wiley Rd. parking lot, a designated entrance into the park, some heavily predated by the time they were found.

To those pro-hunters who claim the remains found in the park have been “staged” by animal rights activists,  we can only ask,  where would AR activists obtain the remains of deer?  I suggest that the conspiracy-minded become acquainted with William of Ockham’s most famous quote: “With all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.” 

 

 

The prevailing monologue we hear about the Short Hills hunt is that it’s an issue of a right to hunt and that the hunt is based on subsistence needs/food sovereignty etc., but commentary and photos by the hunters themselves suggests otherwise.  Since the hunt began in 2013,  almost 200 deer have been killed according to the MNRF’s own records, and even if we assume that’s accurate,  it doesn’t account for deer that escaped with fatal injuries,  to die later elsewhere.   The rate of extermination of deer,  the level of depreciative use, and damage to the park during the days of the hunt is far greater than the ability of the resource to conserve itself.

The pre-ecological thinkers at the MNRF continue to take the road of junk-science in furthering their agenda – greenwashing the hunt as a “herd reduction” of “overpopulated deer,” which coats this violence with a respectable veener for public consumption. But by the Ministry’s own account not a single deer examined by the biologist during the hunt showed signs of starvation or illness, measures of overabundance.  How long do they think this NO HUNT Short Hills  Game Farm  park can sustain the killing of 30-50 deer each and every year?  Not only that, but why should any hunter anywhere have the exclusive “right” to kill any animal that the rest of society might value alive?  Killing a sentient being is the ultimate oppression, no matter what the reason or who is carrying it out.

 

“Kill Everything”

 

 

 

At The 11th Hour, Paranoid Hunting And Fishing Groups Lobby Hard Against Bill C-246

Every year in Canada more than 100,000 complaints of animal cruelty are investigated  Today,  Nathaniel  Erskine-Smith’s private member’s bill, C-246, goes to a vote to see if it will move forward to a Commons Committee.  “There’s been a ton of confusion about the bill. Am I giving animals rights? The right not to be tortured and abused, if we want to call those rights,” Erskine-Smith said in the House last week. Additionally, Canadian Federation of Humane Societies CEO Barbara Cartwright says she’s baffled by some of the opposition, saying it’s based on hyperbole and irrational fear, given that the bill is clearly aimed at criminal, deviant behaviour.“This is about ending animal abuse, not ending animal use.What does ensuring that all animals are protected from sexual abuse have to do with fishing? What does animal fighting have to do with farming practices? What does it have to do with hunting? They aren’t linked.”

In this ideological battle, the pre-Darwinian thinkers who oppose reasonable updates to an ancient law, have not responded to reason, and have taken out full page ads in The Hill Times (paid subscription required to view) Canada’s political newsweekly for October 3, 2016.

 

We All Matter – A Sermon About The Moral Value of Animals

This is a sermon delivered by Earthsave Canada president David Steele at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, July 31st, 2016.  It was originally published on Earthsave Canada`s website.

Six years ago today, on July 31^st 2010, one of the closest friends I’ve ever known died. Her name was Tasty. Tasty the Sky. She was a canine person. An Australian Shepherd.

Tasty was born in early September 1993 in a research facility at the University of Virginia. She was bred to be deaf. It turns out that a common mutation in Australian Shepherds is an analog to similar mutations in humans – these mutations are behind the most common genetic cause of deafness in our species.

Once the study of her deafness was done, she was sent to another lab where the nerves to her heart were cut. The idea was to mimic one of the effects of a heart transplant. Her heart rate from then on was very low. Didn’t interfere with her health overall, though.

But the next event planned for her very definitely would have. Because she was no longer of any use to the institution, she was slated to be killed. Fortunately for her – and, as it turned out, for me – a brave veterinary student named Jessica Levy couldn’t let that happened. She spirited Tasty out of that place. After a short chain of events, Tasty found her new home with me.

I tell you about this because I think that it is through our pets that we often get insight into the internal lives of animals. We can learn from them how similar they often are to us – in their basic wants and desires; in their curiosity; in their problem solving, even.

Tasty would hug people she loved. She would remember how to navigate complex paths in places she once lived – years before – to find old friends or to get a treat that she expected would be at the end of the line. She was very bright. There’s no doubt about it. But really, she was unexceptional. The vast majority of creatures on this planet have amazing capabilities.

That’s in very large measure because, like you and me, they share a very basic and mysterious trait. They are conscious.

And wow is consciousness amazing!

To me, consciousness is the essence of what it is to be a person. It is awareness, the ability to experience. We all know we’ve got it, but we don’t really understand what it is. Physicians assess it by simple test, ranking humans’ consciousness on a scale ranging from full alertness and responsiveness, through states of delirium, and all the way to what they consider a complete lack of consciousness, defined by a complete lack of responsiveness to painful stimulation. Still, this is just a practical definition. It doesn’t get to what consciousness really is.

It’s a question that has eluded the greatest of minds for millennia. Philosophers have puzzled over it and scientists, too, haven’t been able to figure it out. Some claim consciousness is an illusion. The vast majority of us would disagree with that, I think – and with good reason. I include myself on that one. But still, try and tell me just what it is.

Some say that mind and body are separate; others say mind and body are the same. “Consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe”; “it’s a side-effect of how our brains are organized”; “it works like a machine”; “it works because of the spooky properties of quantum mechanics.” The list goes on and on. Put the theories together and what do you get? An unintelligible mess that still doesn’t explain what consciousness is.

Me, even though I don’t understand it, I think it’s physically based. We know that we can modify it by drugs – even eliminate it, e.g., for surgery, then bring it back at will. It disappears every night, too, as we sleep. That, to me, says that it arises as a property of our brains.

And again, looking around, as my experience with Tasty showed me so very well, we humans are obviously nothing like the only creatures on this planet who experience it.

Dogs and cats, cows and pigs, chickens and crows all clearly share the basic experience of life that we do. Fish, too, show clear signs of conscious awareness. Charles Darwin saw it even in the lowly earthworm. I’m not so sure that he was right about that, but I do know that they can be trained to solve very simple mazes. Fruit flies are much better at solving mazes, though; and they can even learn from each other.

We humans have our biases, so most of what we know about animal consciousness comes either from tests of animal intelligence or studies on a trait that is medically useful to humans: pain. We look into intelligence because we value that in others; we look into pain mostly because we want to use the understanding we get from pain in animals to figure out how to alleviate pain in us.

On intelligence, know, for example, that orangutans are relative geniuses. They have been known to steal canoes and paddle them away and even to put on humans’ clothing, if given the chance. Returning to dogs for a second, we have good evidence they can recognize the emotions in other dogs’ faces and in our faces, too.

That animals feel pain is obvious.

We use rats in experiments on pain because we know that they will react to it like we do and that drugs that blunt pain in them almost always do the same in us. They recognize pain in each other as well, and will try to help when they see another rat in distress. Lots of studies have shown this! We’ve even learned that fish feel pain and react similarly to us when confronted with it.

Some scientists claim that fish are not actually feeling pain; their brains are too different from ours, they say. That, to me, speaks of irrational arrogance. One doesn’t need a similar brain to have fundamentally the same experience and ability. Different structures may well take on different roles in different species. Just look at the intelligence of a crow or a parrot! Or even a chicken!

Birds’ brains are very different from those of humans and other mammals. They lack the neocortex that so many scientists tell us is necessary for intelligence. Yet, they are clearly intelligent. Crows make tools – both in the lab and in the wild. Just last week, scientists reported observing New Caledonian crows make long hooks so that they could carry more than one item away from a scene at once. Clearly ‘bird brain’ doesn’t mean what we once thought it did!

I speak of this not only because consciousness is such an amazing mystery, but also because of its moral dimension.

Beings with consciousness feel joy and pain; excitement and disappointment. They have wants and desires. What we call good can befall them; so can ill.

In short, animals – like us! – have moral value.

I am not saying that there are not differences in the ways the we and dogs and sharks and elephants experience consciousness. I’m not saying that the vast majority of other animals we share this earth with are anything like as aware as we are of their place in the world, or of the consequences of their actions.

What I am saying is that they are very much worthy of our moral consideration. That their experiences of life are sufficiently similar to our own that we should do our best to avoid causing harm to them.

We love our dogs and cats and do our very best to ensure that their lives are pleasant. Other animals are similarly deserving.

And those animals may be more aware of us and our abilities than you may think.

Many sure are aware that we are not beings to be trusted. We hunt them, pave over their habitats and otherwise disrupt their lives.

One study that I read about this week highlights this reality very well.

Scientists at the University of Western Ontario studied the fear responses of small predators. I confess that I haven’t read the study yet, so I don’t know the details. What I do know – reported in New Scientist Magazine – is that that badgers, foxes and raccoons evidently fear humans much more than they fear bears, wolves and dogs.

In one experiment, the scientists played badgers, in the wild, the sounds of bears, wolves, dogs and humans over hidden speakers. While hearing bears and dogs had some effect – reducing the likelihood that the badgers would feed, simply hearing the sound of people conversing or reading passages from books completely prevented the badgers from feeding.

A lot of animals, I would guess, if they think about it – think of we humans as terrible threats.

Clearly, from the animals’ points of view, we are perpetrators of horrors. We can’t say just how aware any specific animal is of the dangers we pose, but clearly they avoid us to the extent that they can.

There is one major way that we differ big time from at least the vast majority of the other animal species on earth.

We have highly developed abstract language. We can learn from others over great distances; we can learn from ancestors long dead.

What a huge advantage that is!

And with that advantage comes great opportunity for improvement – and in my view, great responsibility as well.

We have developed thoughtful, sophisticated theories of ethics and morality. We understand the world to a degree unimaginable in the rest of the animal kingdom. We know that others feel pain and fear when we do harm to them, just as we know that they can feel joy and belonging when we treat them well.

So let’s live according to the better angels of our nature. Let’s look objectively both at the good we do in the world and at the ill. Let’s strive to enhance the good and eliminate the bad.

To do that well at that, we need to look carefully at our own actions in our own lives. We need to consider their effects, even whether our actions are warranted at all.

I’m going to focus now on one part of the moral universe that we should be considering. It’s one of the easiest for us – in this rich Western world – to deal with. And it is one with among the greatest consequences.

For the last few minutes of this homily, I’m going to focus on animal agriculture.

From just a human point of view, this is an extremely important issue.

Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to global warming. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization pegs it as responsible for between 15 and 18% of global warming. That’s more than the 14% associated with all of the cars and planes and trains and ships in the world, combined.

Animal agriculture is responsible also for other egregious environmental effects.

The vast majority of corn and soy grown in North America is grown for animal feed. The corn, especially, requires enormous amounts of fertilizer. One result of the use of so much fertilizer is that it runs off into our waterways. This results in massive algal blooms and dead zones. One of the worst examples is the dead zone that forms at the mouth of the Mississippi every year. Every year, about 20,000 square kilometers of the Caribbean becomes an oxygen-depleted zone where all of the fish and lobsters and other sea life go belly up for lack of oxygen.

Animal agriculture is responsible for most of the ammonia pollution in North America. The majority of our fresh water goes into raising animals – mostly to grow the feed corn, soy and alfalfa.

It’s even a major contributor to the antibiotic crisis that the World Health Organization is now warning us about. Over 80% of the antibiotics we use in North America aren’t used to treat humans. No, they’re added to the feed of factory farmed animals. In such tight quarters, they’re necessary to prevent the rapid spread of disease and – to boot – they somehow speed up the growth of the animals.

And that’s not all.

Modern animal agriculture steals food from the poor.

As Vaclav Smil at the University of Manitoba has well documented, animal agriculture is outrageously inefficient. The way we raise animals today, it takes some 14 lbs of corn and soy, etc., to get back one pound of edible pork. Over 30 lbs of corn and soy and alfalfa go into a pound of beef that we actually eat.

In terms of protein, we are similarly careless. Whereas we could get all of the protein in the corn and soy if we just to eat the corn and soy itself, we instead throw most of it away, mostly in animal feces, urine and bones.

Again, referring to Vaclav Smil’s work, we throw away 60% of the plant protein we fed to the cows when we drink a glass of milk. We throw away three quarters of what we could have gotten when we eat chicken or eggs. And we throw away a whopping 87 to 95% of the protein we could have had when we eat pork or beef. It’s outrageous, really!

Throwing away that much corn and soy – and wasting the land on which other forage is grown – necessarily raises the price of grain. That wastage limits the supply of grains, often pricing them out of the reach of the world’s poor. These days biofuels, too, are contributing to that injustice.

Even more outrageous is the way we treat the animals we are so wastefully using.

When we think of farmed animals, we tend to think of animals in pasture; chicken coops; pigs wallowing in the mud. But that is not the reality for the vast majority of animals raised for food today.

Today, the vast majority of our animal foods come from factory farms. Some 98% of eggs come from hens packed 6 to 8 to a cage – each chicken with the equivalent of an 8 ½ x 11” sheet of paper to her – but it’s a wire mesh floor on which she lives. Her brothers, perhaps luckier than her, were ground up alive or suffocated in giant garbage bags on the day they hatched.

Broiler chickens live their 7 week lives on the floors of giant barns. Their badly manipulated bodies growing all out of proportion to the ability of their legs to support them.

60 years ago, it took broiler chickens almost twice as long to reach ‘market weight.’ And ‘market weight’ in those days was one quarter of what it is today. To satisfy our desire for white meat and to meet the financial demand for more meat per bird, the chickens have been bred to grow into near-Frankenstein monsters. They can’t be rescued. Their bodies will soon do them in.

Female pigs are confined to so-called gestation crates. They can stand up and lie down. That’s all. There is not enough room to turn around. Every few months they are forcibly impregnated.

Dairy cows, too, are forcibly impregnated. Like humans, cows give milk only after they give birth. So, they are are artificially impregnated once a year. Her calf will either become another dairy calf or, if male, either be immediately killed or raised for veal. Neither will be allowed to suckle from his or her mother. That milk is for us; the calf gets an artificial formula.

None of this is necessary. Humans do not need to eat meat and other animal products. In fact, there is lots of evidence that avoiding them does us good. Study after study finds dramatically lower rates of heart disease and type II diabetes in vegetarians and especially vegans. Rates of colon cancer and some other cancers are lower, too.

And it’s easier and easier to forgo the stuff. There are plant-based meat substitutes galore. One recently developed burger even has heme in it – evidently the secret ingredient for making beef taste like beef. Plant-based milks are easy to find, too.

We humans are conscious, just like the other animals around us. We have a huge advantage, though. We can learn from others via our abstract language. We can reflect on our actions with the benefit of knowledge no other species that we know of could even dream of – or even imagine exists.

Let’s use our amazing gift for good. We’ll be better off as individuals. We’ll improve our health. Poor people will eat better. Animals will not have to suffer so.

The Devastating Effects of Hunting and Poaching In Short Hills Provincial Park

George Catlin – National Museum of Wildlife Art

Written by:  Heather Clemenceau

In the hierarchy of public lands, parks are the most special places, where nature and all its associated diversions – quiet streams, the scents of the forest after a rain, and the occasional sightings of deer and other animals – are sacrosanct.

George Catlin, a painter of native American art, experienced  the western Great Plains when it was untouched by extensive American development. While witnessing the beauty of this land, he wrote, “…what a beautiful and thrilling specimen….. to preserve and hold up to the view of her refined citizens and the world in future ages!  A nation’s park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature’s beauty.”

Hunting methods have changed a lot since Catlin painted his scenes of bison hunts.  No longer are many  parks primarily left relatively undisturbed  to preserve and protect natural resources but now they must be the venue for a vast array of harmful activities.

The Short Hills Park in the Niagara Peninsula is being destroyed not only by the sanctioned Haudenosaunee native deer hunt each year, but also by illegal and off-seasoned hunting. Poaching and the fear and disruption it causes compromises animals’ normal eating habits, making it harder for them to store the fat and energy they need to survive the winter. The hunt has also devastated the entire community and left residents constantly on edge,  long after the official hunt is over.  Horses live on the outskirts of the park as well, making the park perimeter a dangerous place due to the continual presence of poachers.

Disinterested indentured public servants in the Ministry of Natural Resources have no apparent interest in overseeing the parks. With budgets for maintenance exhausted on the private exploitation of the park, Short Hills is essentially abandoned without oversight. When vegetation is destroyed by 4WD vehicles, plant vigor and regeneration is reduced, ground cover is deteriorated, and there can be a change in species composition.  Inappropriate behaviours such as littering and other depreciative uses add to the degradation of the park.

While the MNR is busy circulating social memes to discourage the use of bird feeders by private citizens, they have no comment on the garbage accumulating in the park.  If bird feeders can attract bears, why is nothing done about garbage in the environmentally significant Fonthill Kame Moraine?  Not only that, gut piles and the remainders of deer carcasses can attract bears,  and are disturbing reminders of this cruel hunt.  Even if one is not in the park to poach deer, the condition of some trails and presence of trash do not inspire visitors to pack out all their garbage.  Perhaps the MNR will have to find space in their budget now to promote the seven principles of the “Leave No Trace” program?

Hunt supporters’ critique of the anti-hunt protesters at Short Hills has often focused on what they claim is the “unacknowledged racism” of nearby “NIMBY do-gooders” as the motivating factors in our protests.  Acrimonious counter-campaigns by hunt supporters seem to have at their core the presumption that protected public lands are there for individual use however they see fit and it is racist to suggest otherwise.   The reality is that vigilant neighbours  are good indicators of a great community.  A population of people like the anti-hunt demonstrators is actually among the most valuable resources a neighbourhood can have.

And it’s always “someone’s backyard” isn’t it?

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Grumpy Old Men – The Orchestrated Attack On Bill C-246

Written by:  Heather Clemenceau

Since 1999, the Liberals have made numerous attempts to pass a much-needed update to the antiquated and inadequate animal cruelty provisions in the Criminal Code of Canada. There was Bill C-17, resurrected as Bill C-15 and then re-introduced as Bill C-15B, followed by Bill C-10, Bill C-10B, Bill C-22, Bill C-50, Bill C-274, Bill C-277 and, finally, Bill C-610. While the House of Commons has passed new animal cruelty legislation three times, those Bills were either prorogued by the government or blocked by the Senate before they made it past the finish line. The Canadian Federation of Humane Societies provides an excellent overview of the Bills here.

Toronto-area Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, recently introduced a Private Members Bill (C-246)  – the Modernizing Animal Protections Act, to reinforce Canada’s public policy and legislative commitments to animal welfare (World Animal Protection ranks Canada’s animal welfare laws a “D” on a scale of A-G).  Only the United Kingdom, Austria, Switzerland, and New Zealand scored “A” grades on the index.  The Bill will be debated in the House of Commons on May 9^th.

Despite rampant paranoia, the law is focused on eliminating the loopholes that allow chronic hoarders, repeat abusers, puppy mill operators and dog fighting perpetrators to get off with a slap on the wrist. It would create a new offence for individuals who cause unnecessary pain, suffering, or injury to an animal through gross negligence of the animal’s welfare. The Bill also sets out to achieve several key measures that are entirely reasonable and should win broad support:

• Prohibition of dog and cat fur importation
• Banning of shark-finning
• Prohibitition the use of live animals in target shooting
• Establishment of penalties for the killing and injuring a police dog
• Prohibition of the training or breeding of animals for the purpose of fighting, as well as making it illegal to profit from dog fighting.

Enter Robert Sopuck, the Conservative MP for Dauphin-Swan River-Neepaw. Sopuck and his cabal of trigger-happy, pre-Darwinian animal killers are so paranoid that hunting and fishing activities will result in cruelty charges, (I wish!) they have created numerous websites and Facebook pages to spread false information and extol the mythical virtues of hunting while proclaiming their services as absolutely necessary for controlling wildlife populations and preserving the environment. These pages feature Sopuck and others dressed up in a variety of machismo fashions, exhibiting unusual levels of arousal while carrying an arsenal of weaponry as they blast into the forests and streams to conduct their primitive rituals.

Sopuck himself proceeded to write a preposterous Toronto Sun article claiming that Erskine-Smith’s Bill will give animals human rights. Clearly channelling former Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, he writes that “Canada already has adequate measures to protect animals and prevent cruelty. Furthermore, all animal uses are covered by veterinary-approved Codes of Practise that guide what you can do with your animals.”  Those “guides” are just that.  They are meaningless because they are not laws.  And they are not “veterinary approved” either – they are the result of inputs from the agriculture industry.  How is it that Sopuck believes we have adequate protections when there are hundreds of entries in the caselaw database of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, with many of those not prosecuted successfully.  Very few animal cruelty cases are prosecuted each year in comparison to the number of cases that are investigated. It is estimated that less than 10% of cases that warrant prosecution are successfully prosecuted.

Lawyer Peter Sankoff lobs a nuclear strike at Sopuck in this deconstruction of Sopuck’s Toronto Sun article.  In the end,  Sankoff finds that virtually all of Sopuck’s claims range from the merely overstated to the downright preposterous – finding none of his claims to be accurate:

 

 

Despite the hunting propaganda which I have read on the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters website, the reality is that most modern families do not embrace hunting as either a pleasurable pastime or a family adventure. In 2010, almost 3.3 million adult anglers participated in a variety of recreational fishing activities in Canada, the majority of whom fall into the 45-64 year age range (If the downward trend in hunting continues, by the year 2050, hunters will only comprise 1% of the population).   Depending on what source you read, about 2-7% of the population are hunters; of course this doesn’t include poachers or treaty hunters who don’t require licenses.  In any case both numbers represent a significant minority of Canadians.  So you have your acknowledged 2-10% of the population righteously informing everyone else that it is only they who are picking up the tab for wildlife conservation – part time at that.

That dog doesn’t hunt, sorry.

Canadians have been signing animal welfare petitions for decades now, demanding that the values of fairness and justice that we’re known for are applied to the protection of animals and to the punishment of animal abusers. Laws are essential to both codify and enforce positive changes for animals. Why should we be one of the only countries that does not yet prohibit the importation of dog and cat fur, because self-serving groups and a few old conservative politicians, who are clearly a product of Stephen Harper, are arguing against reasonable updates to an ancient law.  The fact that Sopuck and the hunting/fishing groups believe that Bill C-246 seeks the “complete elimination of animal use in Canada” indicates that none of them can read. If the Conservatives feel the Bill is “fundamentally flawed,” why don’t they draft their own Bill as they frequently threaten to do?  Their objection is based on the desire to kill animals for the sheer delight it brings them – the rest of the world will move on into the next century without them. Compassion for the natural world is the new order.

You can read the details of Nate Erskine-Smith’s Bill below:

 

Alberta Wildies: Aerial Surveys Used To Substantiate Culls Are Prone To Extreme Inaccuracy

Written by:  Heather Clemenceau

Artwork by:  Melody Perez

Whether it’s conducted for horses, bison, wolf, or deer, aerial surveys usually precede a savage end for our free-roaming,wild, and migratory animals. It usually becomes apparent that a cull is being considered whenever an aerial survey is conducted.  But the process of conducting aerial counts to justify a cull is profoundly flawed.  The scientific evidence to support arguments against the horses just isn’t there.  Counts require low flying and intensive and systematic coverage of the landscape that are more likely to motivate, and less likely to detect, horse escape behaviour.  The anti-predator behaviour of the horse (and other prey animals such as deer) is characterized by grouping together and running to escape, which compounds observers’ ability to make accurate counts, as does aircraft altitude, weather conditions, season, vegetation, and animal mobility. At least one study of wild horse behaviour in New Zealand’s Kaimanawa Mountains has shown that aerial sampling, which is then extrapolated to the entire population, can be highly inaccurate and imprecise: 

“Comparisons between the records of the counters and two observers show that, of the 136 marked horses located immediately prior to the helicopter count, 34 (25%) were counted more than once, a further 23 (17%) may have been counted more than once, and 13 horses (9.6%) were not counted. The helicopter count yielded 228 horses and was 16.9% larger than the estimate of 195.“

In addition, counts that are made only once a year for 2-3 days are not generally considered to be a robust form of wildlife management when compared to counts done 3 times a year, such as in the spring after what is often a harsh winter, after the foals are born, and before a capture is being considered.   Reliable methods to estimate wild horse populations should be important to Alberta Environment & Parks (formerly  Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development – ESRD)  because otherwise they will continue to make programmatic decisions that aren’t supported by science.  A single aerial census is not terribly useful since the horses are pretty scarce and elusive when spread out over 6 million acres, which results in a weak inference about horses that are neither abundant nor widespread in the Equine Zones. Not only is the aerial count slipshod because it is only one sample, E&P doesn’t know how many horses are too many.    E&P allow the “Feral Horse Advisory Committee,” with representation from several stakeholder groups, such as oil and gas, forestry, cattle ranchers, capture permit holders and hunters, (groups with a vested interest in removing wild horses) input into culls.

By most accounts there are somewhere between 850-980 wild horses currently grazing a vast area close to six million acres in 6 equine zones in Alberta Canada.  The cattle being grazed consist in numbers about 10 times the number of equids in the 6 zones.

It is falsely claimed by E&D that wild horses have no predators.  These wild horses, like all other ungulates, do have natural predators.  If not, why then would the E&P (ESRD) advertise on their website hunting and trapping licence for cougars, wolves and bears?  It’s also falsely claimed by the Feral Horse Advisory Committee that horses compete with wildlife and cattle for forage.  If so,  how many skinny cattle come off the range each year?  The government’s own study by R.E. Salter, who has a master’s degree in zoology – did not document forage or behavioural competition with either wildlife or domestic cattle.  Studies in British Columbia showed that overgrazing and erosion were caused by too many cattle and not horses.

The New Zealand Study On Aerial Surveillance:

View this document on Scribd

By the grace of (insert the deity of your choice), a cull was not held this year. The decision to cull any of these horses should not lie in the interpretation that they are feral rather than wild; feral is a human construct that serves only to stigmatize the horses.

You only have to look at these horses to see that they are almost evolving into a distinct breed, rather like the Canadian horse.  They deserve heritage status and advocates should demand that “managing” these unique and iconic herds be conducted using a biological basis which should never include inputs from groups that seek to eliminate them.

There should be a ban on selling captured horses to slaughterhouses (in part because there is not six months worth of drug history on any of them) therefore those doing so should be heavily fined.

 

 

 

 

Contact:

Minister Shannon Phillips
323 Legislature Building
10800 97 Avenue
Edmonton, AB
Canada T5K 2B6
Phone: (780) 427-2391
Email: AEP.Minister@gov.ab.ca