Environmental appeal decision sheds light on B.C. hunting rules

Two years after B.C. reduced the moose hunt in its north by half, the provincial Environmental Appeal Board has rejected a challenge of the change in regulations.

Gerry Paille, B.C. Wildlife Federation's president for the Peace region, said while appeals of hunting regulations rarely succeed, they highlight a lack of transparency in how the province arrived at its quotas for moose.

"Some of the data doesn't make sense to us," Paille said. "We haven't got a full explanation as to how they came up with that number."

The Environmental Appeal Board decision, issued Thursday, sheds light on how the province sets its hunting regulations, and underscores gaps in moose and caribou population data in some regions. 

The wildlife federation was named as a participant in the appeal, because it represents resident hunters. The B.C. Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship did not immediately respond to request for comment. 

In 2022, the province cut the number of moose available to resident hunters and commercial hunting guide outfitters in half. Officials sent resident hunters and guide outfitters in each management zone an updated quota for the next five years.

Cassidy Caron, owner of a commercial hunting outfitter in the Peace region, said in board documents the change in regulations puts her business in an "impossible situation."

The change reduced moose hunting in Caron's zone from an open season to a quota of five moose. She was notified of the change that May.

In an email from Caron to the Ministry of Forests that was included in the board documents, she said she already had 23 clients booked for moose hunting tours by that point, and the change in regulation so late into the year was "unbelievably unfair."

"[The change] will probably result in bankruptcy of our business and possibly the loss of our houses we mortgaged to buy the area," Caron said. 

That July, Caron appealed the regulation, alleging the change was announced too late in the season and questioning whether the province's actual quotas were based on science. 

In the email, Caron said after losing two seasons of hunting tours to the COVID-19 pandemic, the moose population was flourishing, and asked for transparency on how the decision was made. 

It's a call that's been repeated in the years since. 

When controversial hunting regulations came into effect this May, further reducing the northern moose and caribou hunts, hunters, outfitters and the B.C. Wildlife Federation asked why the regulations were changed — and called for hunting regulations to be based on science.