Manitoba has rescinded polar bear viewing automobile permits for a Churchill ecoutourism firm owned by a candidate vying to guide the opposition Progressive Conservative Social gathering.
The provincial wildlife department instructed Lazy Bear Expeditions proprietor Wally Daudrich final week that his firm is not any longer permitted to function two tundra autos on the coastal plains of the Churchill Wildlife Administration Space, east of Churchill, the place polar bears collect in massive numbers every fall earlier than the ice freezes up on Hudson Bay.
The wildlife department stated Lazy Bear’s licence has been rescinded for the 2025 season due to the persevering with decline within the variety of polar bears on the western facet of Hudson Bay.
“This determination is meant to align with Manitoba’s conservation priorities for polar bears and the safety of the delicate tundra ecosystem,” wildlife department director Maria Arlt stated in a letter to Daudrich on Feb. 27.
“Moreover, issues concerning the potential habituation of polar bears to autos, which poses security dangers, additional underscore the need of this restrict.”
Arlt stated the province is lowering the variety of autos allowed to traverse the tundra within the Churchill Wildlife Administration Space from 20 to 18. That was the variety of autos permitted to hold vacationers to see polar bears previous to 2020, when the provincial authorities granted two extra automobile allocations to Lazy Bear.
The opposite 18 tundra autos are operated by Frontiers North and Nice White Bear, two different Churchill ecotourism corporations. The variety of autos allowed to hold vacationers to see bears alongside the coastal plain was capped at 18 in 1984 and upheld at that quantity in a 2013 administration plan accomplished for the Churchill Wildlife Administration Space.
Since then, Arlt stated, the variety of polar bears within the Western Hudson Bay subpopulation have declined additional and the physique situation of the surviving bears has deteriorated, primarily due to more and more lengthy ice-free seasons on Hudson Bay.
Polar bears solely hunt for seals when ice is on the bay.
“Future projections point out that polar bears in Western Hudson Bay are among the many most susceptible to the consequences of local weather change and consequently these bears will likely be spending longer intervals on land, culminating in elevated stress ranges as a consequence of lack of meals within the ice-free interval,” Arlt stated.
Surveys and environmental monitoring of the Western Hudson Bay polar bear subpopulation counsel the number of bears in the region dropped by 50 per cent between 1979 and 2021 and the average weight of these bears has also declined, in response to Canadian analysis revealed within the journal Science in January.
Daudrich stated in an interview the well being of the polar bear inhabitants within the Churchill space is vital to ecoutourism corporations.
“Churchill’s greatest, greatest useful resource is wholesome polar bears,” he stated, objecting to the concept his automobile allocations needed to be cancelled to make sure the well being of the bears.
“That is a dialogue for Churchill and our tourism trade to have, to not arbitrarily pull permits away. Simply my permits, by the way in which. No person else’s.”
Daudrich stated he and his household, which additionally personal the lodge Lazy Bear Lodge, spent a long time build up their enterprise to earn the correct to obtain automobile allocations in 2020.
“We really did excursions previous to that for years as properly, however we wanted the permits that we’ve got now from a advertising and marketing perspective and to guarantee that our shoppers, in fact get the very best tour,” he stated.
Daudrich stated 1000’s of individuals have booked excursions with Lazy Bear for this fall and in 2026. He stated he stands to lose tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} as a consequence of cancellations.
He accused the NDP authorities of taking part in a task in rescinding his automobile allocations.
“I consider the forms is being weaponized by Wab Kinew towards me,” stated Daudrich, claiming he’s forward of Fort Whyte MLA Obby Khan within the PC management race.
Voting has but to start in that contest, which concludes on April 26.
“I believe they see me as an unknown entity,” Daudrich stated of the NDP authorities. “They need to throw me off stability. However I am on this sport, I am right here to remain.”
Pure Sources Minister Ian Bushie dismissed Daudrich’s allegation about political interference.
“Not like the PCs, we’re taking the politics out of this. That is the division doing their due diligence,” Bushie stated in a press release, referring to Daudrich’s longstanding membership within the PC social gathering earlier than he acquired automobile allocations of his personal.
A CBC Information request for an interview with the Pure Sources division was declined.
In a press release that was not attributed to any official, the province stated stated it carried out “in depth engagement” about polar bear automobile allocations throughout the autumn of 2024 and “decided that polar bear viewing tourism is saturated.”
On Tuesday, John Gunter at Frontiers North and Kyle Walkoski at Nice White Bear declined to touch upon the cancellation of Lazy Bear’s automobile allocations.
In 2020, Frontiers North objected to the provincial determination to grant Lazy Bear two automobile allocations, claiming the province didn’t seek the advice of the opposite ecotourism corporations.
Nice White Bear, in the meantime, took the province to court docket in 2020 in an effort to get Lazy Bear’s automobile allocations revoked on the premise they have been issued in “discriminatory, biased and unfair method.”
Arlt advised in her letter the 2020 determination to grant these allocations to Lazy Bear was unfair.
“We’re dedicated to restoring a good and clear allocation course of for the longer term,” she stated in her letter.
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