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Rabbit Advocacy Animal Matters
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Province takes aim at feral pigs March 20, 2014 BC Newsroom It is now legal for licensed hunters to harvest feral pigs anywhere in the province, under a new regulatory amendment designating the animal as ‘Schedule C’ wildlife. Feral pigs are invasive animals that have escaped farm environments and established themselves in the wild. Escaped swine have been reported in the Lower Mainland, Kamloops, Okanagan, Peace and Kootenay regions. Feral pigs can cause significant damage to local ecosystems by competing with local wildlife for forage, damaging crops, uprooting native vegetation and eating the eggs of ground nesting birds. They can also be the source of infectious diseases and parasites, which can be harmful to wildlife, livestock and human health, noted a March 20 Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations press release. Designating feral pigs as Schedule C under the Wildlife Act’s Designation and Exemption Regulation will assist in reducing their numbers and also provide hunters an opportunity to harvest them that was not previously available. Feral pigs can be aggressive, and may pose a threat to the public or a hunter if they are wounded. Accordingly, the regulation requires anyone harvesting a feral pig to possess a valid hunting licence, to ensure only trained and certified hunters harvest feral pigs. While there are not many feral pigs in British Columbia, this is a proactive measure since once established feral pigs are extremely hard to eradicate, the press release states. The regulatory amendment also designates European wall lizards and non-native turtles as Schedule C invasive species, removing the requirement to obtain a permit before trapping or killing these invasive species. Media Contact: Media Relations Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations 250 356-5261 NB: Stephen MacIver, a policy analyst with the provincial FLNR ministry in Victoria, was quoted recently on a Saskatchewan-based hunters’ site, WildBoarCanada.ca, as saying there are “minimal populations” of feral pigs in the province, but the ministry was considering “proactive steps” to cut down the pigs’ potential to get established. The BC government, with everyone from politicians, to policy makers, bureaucrats, and ‘conservation’ officers, seem to have one-dimensional thinking – kill, kill, kill. That’s why we are fighting back to protect the habitat and the lives of the many species who make this province their home, non-native or not. Comment: Once in the wild, European rabbits, Oryctolagus cuniculus are regulated as wildlife under the BC Wildlife Act, listed as Schedule C of the Wildlife Act Designation and Exemption Regulation. Therefore, a permit or licence is not required to kill them. (these are domestic animals and their offspring that have been abandoned by ‘owners.’) There certainly is a lot of discussion regarding humans as fitting the definition of an invasive species. We not only ruthlessly destroy plants, animals, and environments, those that we don't exterminate to extinction we selfishly take for ourselves and crossbreed or genetically alter them merely for our own wishes. We’ve also fittingly been called a virus, a disease, a plague upon the planet. “Only 100 billion people have every lived. 7 billion people live today. And yet we torture and kill 2 billion sentient living beings every week! 10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one and we are now facing the sixth mass extinction in cosmological history. If any other organism did this a biologist would would call them a virus. It is a crime against humanity of unimaginable proportions.” Philip Wollen Visit our Animal Exploitation page |