Jim Lawrence considered Apple the Bear an old friend.
The famed photographer and environmental advocate spent years taking pictures of Apple, a grizzly who roamed a small area near the north end of the Lardeau River. A distinctive scar on her nose made Apple easy to spot, and she co-existed with locals who in turn showed her respect.
“She was an ambassador. Just a wonderful bear. The first bear a lot of people got to watch close up,” said Lawrence. “She wasn’t frightening, there was nothing intimidating about Apple. She would just look you in the face like a dog. She could smile, show her emotions. Not aggressive, if you got too close she would woof but even her woof wasn’t frightening.
“Apple, that bear would dispel all the myths about the horrible things that bears are.”
In the spring of 2015, Lawrence returned to the area with Oxygen Art Centre director Miriam Needoba, who was in the process of filming Lawrence for her documentary Eyes in the Forest: The Portraiture of Jim Lawrence.
The pair found Apple’s cubs wandering without their mother, whose head Lawrence spotted being taken away on an ATV.
“The whole community just mourned,” said Needoba. “Here’s the thing: the hunters are supposed to shoot absolutely nothing with a cub. The cubs are not usually that far behind their mother. So technically she was killed by a hunter who paid their tab and was damn sure going to leave with a trophy head.”
Lawrence and Needoba’s advocacy was recognized by Nelson-Creston MLA Michelle Mungall after the provincial government announced last week a ban on grizzly bear trophy hunting starting Nov. 30.
Related: Grizzly bear trophy hunt to end Nov. 30
He had approached Mungall last year for advice on what more he could do. She suggested a petition, which she could present on the floor of the legislative assembly.
Lawrence and Needoba began collecting names during a tour for her film, and handed Mungall nearly 5,000 signatures that she took to Victoria in May 2016.
“Jim has been a long-time advocate to ban the grizzly trophy hunt. Not only as an advocate but as an activist,” said Mungall. “He can be credited with a lot of work around raising awareness of the issue and getting people to sign the petition, which really showed us British Columbians care about the issue. A lot of people were very active on this issue throughout Nelson-Creston specifically.”
Lawrence and Needoba are cautiously optimistic about the ban. They both see it as a step forward, but point out the ban stipulates bears can still be killed for meat, which leaves open the possibility of bears being shot and left for dead. That loophole, Lawrence says, is the size of a grizzly bear.
“I think there’s a lot of work to be done still on the grizzly trophy hunt,” said Lawrence. “It’s wonderful that they’ve made a 100 per cent ban in the Great Bear Rainforest, but that’s only seven per cent of the province. The rest of the province bears are on their own still, which is very unfortunate. The hunt’s going to continue this fall, there’ll be more killing.”
The ban isn’t beginning until the current hunting season ends, which Mungall said was necessary because delays by the previous Christy Clark government meant the NDP couldn’t rescind hunting licence applications that had already been submitted.
“We’re also going to take that time to make sure we’re consulting with hunters, we’re consulting with environmental organizations, fair-viewing operations and concerned citizens so we don’t have a backdoor into the trophy hunt via the meat hunt,” said Mungall.
“That we are ensuring whatever hunt takes place for grizzly bears, it is for meat. That is a very small numbers of bears if we look at actually how the hunt is practised.”
Even though the ban is coming, Lawrence said his work will continue. The bears, after all, are old friends.
“You spend time around the bears, you get to appreciate the bears. They’re intelligent bears, they’re sentient beings. Like you and me they have feelings, they struggle. It’s not easy for a bear to make a go of it out there.”
