Saturday 21 March 2009

Polar bear hunt in Canada


Hunting polar bears in the Arctic has become a popular extreme sport for the wealthy.

For $35,000, trophy-hunters can spend 14 days in the frozen wastelands of northern Canada, accompanied by dog-sleds, Inuit guides and heated tents.

Despite the widely-reported threat to polar bears from climate change as Arctic sea ice melts away, it is legal to hunt them for sport in Canada.

The Pond Inlet hunt, run by Adventure Northwest in Yellowknife, sees the hunters shoot the bear, usually behind the leg. They give the bear’s body parts to the Inuits and the hunter is able to take its hide home.

The company’s founder, Boyd Warner, 45, defended the hunts, saying clients 'respect the bears enormously' and that the quota of bears hunted 'are going to get killed one way or another' because the Inuits depend on them for winter food.

Canada is one of five countries that are home to polar bears, but three others — America, Greenland and Russia — restrict the killing of the creatures to a quota solely for their Arctic populations. The fifth, Norway, has outlawed stalking the bears. There are 22,000 polar bears but the latest scientific surveys suggest that two-thirds could be lost by 2050.

Sarah Palin would... if she only could.

Care2, polar bear petition. Defenders of Wildlife, polar bear adoption.

Story from Daily Mail, UK.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

don't blank out those faces.....let the world see them

Anonymous said...

Oh gosh that makes me sick!! I love all animals and I realize some hunting must occur but the polar bear?? I think there is someting deeply emotionally wrong with someone who kills for the shear thrill of it. It's sick

regina said...

Anonymous,

I would show their faces, but the photo already had them blanked out.

Cowards...

Regina

Anonymous said...

OMG! Regina that picture is so sad of that poor bear! I had no idea they were doing this in Canada. Canada seems to have no regard for its wildlife, as they do the clubbing of baby seals also :(
I guess we should write them that we will boycott anything from Canada?
Thanks for posting this important information...

Anonymous said...

don't believe this bullshit that you read here about Sarah Palin. There is no proof in these pictures that she did the actions she is accuse of.

regina said...

Anonymous@17:17

Who said Sarah Palin hunted polar bears? The story is about Canada. Read the post properly before posting comments, ok?

Jason said...

Your picture was not that of a polar bear. The image is from National Geographic and represents a most unusual circumstance.

That bear is a polar-grizzly hybrid of which the world had never seen. If is was not for the fact that this bear was not discovered, science would not have been able to advance as a result of the discovery.