SARA listing may reduce polar bear hunt’s value: researcher

As the federal environment department moves towards adding polar bears to Canada’s list of endangered species, some maintain that a listing decision wouldn’t affect the fortunes of Nunavut polar bear hunters.

But George Wenzel, a McGill University researcher who has studied Nunavut’s polar bear hunt for more than 30 years, isn’t so sure.

The listing could lead to a boom in the value of polar bear trophies and sports hunting — but it cause also cause Nunavut hunters to lose the last species that offers a them a chance to make extra money.

Wenzel said he’s not certain what the listing under Canada’s Species at Risk Act will mean.

That’s because the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada had already slapped a “special concern” label on polar bears.

This has already increased interest in polar bear trophies, likely because these may, in the future, become more rare.

Wenzel said his suspicion is that “over the next two years there will be a run on polar bears.”

At the last Fur Harvesters Inc. auction in North Bay, Ontario this past January, where polar bear pelts were offered, the average auction price set an all time high, he notes, with one hide selling for $11,000.

Wenzel said that if he were an executive member of a hunters and trappers organization, he would recommend that no polar bear tags be sold for sport hunting.

This would allow hunters to maximize the return on their hunting effort through the meat, the high price of selling the pelt and the “psychic-cultural reward of doing the hunting.”

Wenzel said local polar bear sport hunting outfitters he knows are already unhappy, because increasing restrictions on polar bear trophies has cut into the number of clients.

However, the auction boom could mean even higher fees for a sports hunt, he said, because sports hunters who want a polar bear can afford $40,000 to $50,000 as easily as they can afford to spend $35,000.

“It really comes down to whether the SARA listing will shut down commercial sales of polar bears, whether in guided hunts, through the auction or even private sales,” Wenzel said,

Canada already has very tight controls on the polar bear trade, Wenzel noted.

So, the end result of the SARA listing may be that while Inuit can continue to harvest, they won’t be able to produce money along with meat.

The loss of those polar bear dollars, especially the large amounts earned by guides, will ultimately affect other areas of harvesting because hunters will be dollar-short for new equipment and fuel, he said.

The income which hunters can obtain through guiding sport hunters is critical because it helps them buy equipment to use in hunting.

And often these hunter-guides lack the education and linguistic skills to take on other well-paying jobs.

As a business, the sport polar bear hunt is a development of the past 30 years, although it’s become increasingly important socially and economically to many Nunavut hunters.

The Northwest Territories first encouraged outfitters to get involved in the sport polar bear hunt as a response to declining seal fur market in the 1980s, according to previous research by Wenzel.

Unpublished records from Clyde River, which he cited in his 2005 paper, “Nunavut Inuit and Polar Bear: The Cultural Politics of the Sport Hunt,” show only one sport hunt between 1955 and 1970, involving an American military officer visiting the U.S. Coast Guard station at nearby Cape Christian.

Between 1969 and 1983, there were only four polar bear sport hunts. After that, the polar bear sport hunt took off, encouraged by the NWT government.

Every spring used to see about 10 sport polar bear hunts in Clyde River.

Local outfitters may now receive between $18,000 and $35,000 for polar bear sport hunts, depending on whether the hunts are booked directly or through southern outfitters.

So, the money going to their guides — about $7,300 per hunt — offers “considerably larger sums of scarce money” than is possible through the sale of furs or ecotourism.

The future of polar bear hunting in Nunavut really turns on whether the SARA listing “decommodifies” the last species “that folks can earn serious money from.”

“I think until the meaning of the listing is clear, a lot of bears are going to be arriving at auction and the truly, truly well-heeled may form the sport hunt market,” Wenzel said.