Joey Payeur
It’s a win for the environmental lobbyists.
But the president of the North Western Ontario Tourism Association said the cancellation of a Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry proposal to loosen restrictions on wolf and coyote hunting in Northern Ontario won’t be a shot-in-the-arm for local resort owners.
“I don’t feel it was the right decision,” said Lucas Adams.
“I think they should have worked on managing the wolf and coyote populations better by relaxing the rules to make it more accessible, money-wise, for hunters,” he noted.
The MNRF had outlined plans to waive the need for hunters to obtain a wolf licence, and also was looking to remove the limit on how many coyotes could be killed in the north by each individual hunter.
But a significant public outcry to the proposal in January, combined with a trio of petitions against the plan that elicited roughly 200,000 combined signatures, caused the MNRF to rethink its decision.
The wolf-coyote game seal limit will stay at two per calendar year, and all seal-holders still are required to report on their hunting activity and harvest.
The reason given by the MNRF for its change of heart was that it wanted to make sure hunters across the province all were following the identical licensing system when hunting wolves.
Adams said nixing the proposal has the biggest effect on non-resident hunters, who make up the majority of those who invest their time and money at local tourism camps.
“It’s $250 for a wolf tag, plus another $110 to get a small-game licence,” he noted.
“That’s substantial when you consider residents only have to pay $10 [for the licence].
“It cuts down on a lot of the licence sales a lot more for the guys who are already deer hunters and moose hunters,” Adams said.
“They won’t buy a small-game licence and take the chance of paying that much of a cost without more of a guarantee they’re going to be able to find and kill a wolf.
“By not changing the rules, it costs more to be able to go hunt a wolf than it does to buy a moose licence [about $330],” he stressed.
Adams noted the lack of deer and moose in some regions is a result of the increasing wolf and coyote populations, which has a ripple effect on those who hunt those bigger animals.
“It’s kind of a letdown for hunters all across the board,” he remarked.
“They’re putting all the burden on the hunters by reducing the number of [deer and moose] tags and not on the other predators.”
NWOTA will hold its annual spring meeting May 5 at the Emo Inn.
