Predator Killing: Greed, Savagery, and Misguided Science

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.

Evil in man’s heart hasn’t been eradicated by the ‘civilizing process’. Wildlife killing contests offer a horrific, publicly sanctioned outlet for satiating this lingering savagery.

We need to purge our discourse of linguistic traps that distort the perception of animals. They are not agricultural or hunting products to be “culled” or “harvested” but sentient beings who feel joy and pain, and who bleed, suffer, and die like the rest of us.