Guest post: Open meddling by politicians and commercial interests is putting Alberta’s fish and wildlife management at risk

Once upon a time, Alberta led the way in restoring wildlife habitats and rebuilding populations of creatures at risk. Wildlife biological staff, working in the public interest, often in the public sector, with the support of the public, made it happen. Not so much today. Now, writes Professional Biologist Lorne Fitch, professionally trained biologists are being sidelined by the Alberta government, their advice frequently ignored. Instead, the government is listening to politicians and lobbyists who want to treat wildlife resources as a money-making opportunity for a special interest group. Most recently, this happened with the Great Alberta Grizzly Bear (non) Hunt. This is not a healthy situation, for humans or wild animals. DJC 

By Lorne Fitch

Open meddling by Alberta politicians and lobbyists is putting science-based fish and wildlife management at risk in the province.

Whether you’re a hunter, an angler, or appreciate wildlife in other ways, this should worry you. 

Alberta used to demonstrate how science-based conservation was supposed to work. 

With biological staff working in the public interest, supported by the public, over the years we have restored habitats and populations of peregrine falcon, swift fox, bison, trumpeter swan, whooping crane, pronghorn antelope, Canada goose, grizzly bear, ferruginous hawk, northern leopard frog, elk, northern pintail, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, white pelican, mountain bluebird, lake sturgeon, walleye, bull trout, and prairie rattlesnake.

But today, what used to be management guided by experienced, professionally trained biologists has been sidelined, or worse, taken over by politicians and lobbyists who don’t understand science or don’t want to, who don’t trust biologists and data, or who have a vested economic interest in pursuing their own agenda. 

Consider the following examples:

Alberta grizzly bears are a threatened species. Despite this, in a politically directed, administrative sleight of hand, a hunt has been initiated under the guise of “protection of life and property from problem wildlife.” 

Hunters would enter their names in a draw to be sent out to hunt “problem” animals as if they were some kind of vigilante. Grizzly bear experts are unanimous that sport hunting, contrary to assertions, will not minimize depredations against private property or conflicts between humans and bears.

Cougar hunting in Alberta has been managed based on strict regional quotas. This is a tightly regulated hunt, based on years of study. But near the end of a recent season there was a political intervention to increase the quotas, even for female cats, and open up new areas to hunting, including a provincial park. This was contrary to the management plan and a wild deviation from scientific objectives.

Quotas for mule deer, mountain goat, and moose have also been manipulated to appease special interests. Quotas should be based on verifiable evidence from aerial surveys. 

Years of patient, evidence-based recovery of lake-dwelling sport fish were nearly derailed by a politically motivated attempt to throw open harvest levels, the very approach that had originally caused these populations to crash.

Despite no solid evidence that control measures work to protect game fish populations, a politically inspired cormorant season was opened, under the guise of a “damage control license.”

And proposals for more risky policies keep being dreamed up, including night hunting for predators, and hunts for mourning doves and whistling swans. 

A retired wildlife biologist calls the rationale behind these “light on fact, heavy on political pressure.”

Hunters, conservationists and biologists are concerned recent changes in wildlife management are more about supporting business interests than about biology and conservation. What is currently playing out in Alberta is a template for serious deviations from publicly supported, science-informed, and professionally guided management practices. 

Tactics used to promote this dangerous approach to conservation management include: 

• Slashing budgets and staffing to make the work of professional biologists appear ineffective
• Separating related functions – including allocation, research, enforcement, education and wildlife coexistence – into different departments with unrelated mandates
• Discouraging collaboration and co-operation between biological staff in separate departments
• Hindering communication with the public by gagging and isolating biologists from public engagement
• Enforcing top-down, authoritarian decision-making where ideas must be blindly implemented and defended
• Punishing staff who voice objective concerns, display independent thinking or propose alternatives
• Promoting public mistrust in professional biological staff by treating them as political servants instead of knowledgeable advisors
• Denying or ignoring empirical evidence in favour of advice by so-called experts with vested interests
• Making it easy for committed biologists to retire or resign, then not replacing them 
• Dismissing idea that fish and wildlife are public resources and instead treating them as if they are fungible units like oil and timber for financial gain by economic interest groups
• Narrowing the focus of management to “game” species while undercutting work on species at risk and critical habitat conservation
• Refusing to share or delaying access to publicly funded data and reports with information contrary to the chosen political narrative

Fish and wildlife management is an amalgam of biology, ecology and sociology, the last being the human element where a public voice is essential. However, the study of biology relies on scientific principles that cannot be tinkered with. Gut instincts, intuition, personal whims, crowd think, social media opinion, and picking political favourites are poor substitutes for empirical evidence. 

Alberta’s fish and wildlife management has been tainted by politics before. In the past, failure to listen to expert advice on game ranching resulted in chronic wasting disease crippling wild ungulate populations and the rampant spread of wild boars. Refusal to believe the data showing declines in caribou, native trout, and sage grouse populations stymied recovery efforts.

But there is historical public support for science-based stewardship of our wild heritage because it serves the majority of Albertans. To be driven politically in support of a few will take us back to dark times for wildlife.

When the public is excluded and biologists are ignored due to political interference, we run the risk of running out of wildlife.

Everyone – hunters, anglers, and naturalists – benefits when we steward fish and wildlife using science and facts applied in a professional manner, refined through balanced, fair and open public process. Stewardship fails when we don’t.

Lorne Fitch is a Professional Biologist, a retired Fish and Wildlife biologist, and a past Adjunct Professor with the University of Calgary. He is the author of “Streams of Consequence: Dispatches From the Conservation World.”