The province has concluded its Limited Entry Hunting (LEH) draw for the 2021 fall period including for the cow moose and calves, despite protests from all over the province.
An LEH synopsis was issued earlier this year and the draw has now closed. The draw however includes roughly 138 LEH authorizations for cow moose and calf in Prince George area (Omineca region) and 25 for calves only.
The province has been undertaking these controversial moose cow-calf hunts in a bid to protect the caribou numbers. Based on the tenative authorizations in the synopsis, the province has 402 LEH authorizations this year, as opposed to 400 last year.
The recently re-elected Chief for Cheslatta Carrier Nation, Corrina Leween, has been a staunch opponent of these hunts.
“Premier Horgan has to realize that we are trying to sustain an economy for our people to have food for next generations and that’s not what is being implemented. I am trying to monitor even in our community and territory the aspects of hunting because I have asked our people not to hunt and they have respected it,” she said.
Leween, who is herself a hunter, doesn’t hunt anymore to set an example for her people. She doesn’t want her people to hunt cow moose and calf due to the rapidly declining numbers of moose in the region.
“The province needs to respect First Nations’ knowledge of hunting. We know that the balance isn’t right in the environment, that the moose are on a decline. For the province, the balance right now is just about the economy and that’s not balance according to me,” she said.
Leween has expressed her interest in speaking with Premier John Horgan to enquire about why they are moving forward with these hunts despite the protests all across the province.
“When I was driving to Prince George, I saw a mother moose on the highway with her baby moose. And now they are going to hunt them down? That’s just not right,” she said.
Protests over these hunts and awareness-building, has continued across the province. Recently, two billboards were installed in Topley on Hwy. 16, between Burns Lake and Houston through the cow moose sign project, spearheaded by Dan and Vivian Simmons of Williams Lake.
The couple has also put up over thousand signs all across the province, urging the provincial government to stop the antlerless moose hunt.
Last year, the LEH authorizations were issued for the Omineca and Kootenays however this year, based on the synopsis, it could be extended to Thompson region in the Kamloops area, Okanagon and Cariboo area.
ALSO READ: Cow Moose sign project billboards arrive in Topley
Priyanka Ketkar
Multimedia journalist
@PriyankaKetkar
priyanka.ketkar@ldnews.net
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