Category: Essays

Claiming scientific impartiality in wildlife management is an illusion. Preferences, biases, and emotions inform the mindsets of all the actors, regardless of their position. The question is not who is driven by objective science and who is not, but rather whose values and beliefs deserve greater consideration.

We are numb to numbers. In the aftermath of a tragedy, it is the fate of the individual not the scale of suffering that elicits compassion and mobilizes us into action.

Black bears can be both a thrilling and feared presence in urban neighbourhoods. In the vast majority of cases, the risk that they pose to the public does not warrant lethal management.

Current conservation policies are driven by irrational fears, reluctance to inconvenience ourselves in co-existence with nature, and resistance to challenging the status quo.

In British Columbia, a war on wildlife never ends; cruelty goes on, unabated. We cannot unshackle ourselves from the self-centered belief system that destines us to view nature as a resource subordinate to our needs.