This is an open letter to MLA Eric Foster. My name is Dena Sharkey and I’m a resident hunter. I have lived in Vernon for 36 years and I hunt to provide hormone and antibiotic-free, organic meat to my family.
The recent changes to the limited entry hunting (LEH) allocations have now made it more difficult to provide for my family.
I am not a trophy hunter by any means. I apply for certain limited entry draws on a yearly basis, in order for a greater chance at filling my freezer. I have never been drawn.
Had I been drawn for moose or mule deer doe this past fall, I’d have been able to cut my tags and wrap up my hunting season as early as October of this year. But because I had to keep hunting until I could put meat in my freezer, I hunted through to December.
With the new proposed allocations, there will be even fewer opportunities for me and my fellow hunters in the area, as the provincial government has decided to give more LEH tags to foreign trophy hunters via allocations to guide outfitters.
This is incredibly unfair. The foreign hunters are unable to even keep the meat from the animals they kill. They are simply out there to put a trophy on their wall.
I fail to see how this benefits B.C. residents in any way, shape or form. I ask you, please. Reconsider this decision.
Talk to Forests Minister Steve Thomson and ask him to reconsider this decision. Talk to Premier Clark and ask her to reconsider this decision.
If you want statistics, I’d love a chance to sit down with you and show you those numbers.
I would like to know your position on this matter, as it does matter to well over 100,000 hunters in this province. I am not alone.
Please let me know what you are doing with regards to this matter. If nothing, then just let me know you aren’t doing anything so I can pursue this elsewhere.
Again Mr. Foster, do you think this is fair?
How is this going to benefit me, and the other 102,000-plus hunters in this province?
Please give me some insight on this being ‘the right thing to do’.
Again, I cross my fingers and hope you will at least acknowledge my letter and maybe even answer. One can dream.
Dena Sharkey
Vernon
