I read with interest your feature article “Lone Wolf” in the summer 2023 issue of ON Nature about gray wolves need for uninterrupted landscapes for habitat. Ontario Nature rightly cares about gray wolves. Unfortunately, just yesterday, I read the news from the Fur-Bearers group that B.C. had shot from helicopters 217 wolves and 8 cougars spending $1.65 million of taxpayer money ostensibly to help caribou. This is a stunningly stupid move, and I can’t imagine who or why the B.C. government would do such a horrible thing. Clearing of trees to make roads and disturbance of habitat by mankind to access various natural resources (including old growth forests) is the real culprit for why wolves have found it easier to prey on caribou. This is a human-made problem, but of course the wolves are paying the price.
It’s ill informed that the government of B.C. would make the decline of caribou the fault of gray wolves and bobcats. It’s especially unconscionable in an age of biodiversity loss. I think that if Quebec also faced with this issue, it wouldn’t even consider culling gray wolves. It is more about how much logging should be allowed when building these logging corridors makes it easy for wolves to hunt caribou as most people seem to know. I remember when I lived in Montreal that it was a very hot issue with people.
– Yvonne Hiemstra