Yukon board reviewing grizzly bear hunting ban along roads

The Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board is reviewing a spring-time ban on roadside hunting of grizzly bears.
    
The ban would protect roadside grizzly bears along all the major highways in the south-central Yukon.
    
It was prompted by a number of incidents over the past decade including public outrage last summer after hunters shot a grizzly grazing along the Tagish Road. There was similar anger a few years earlier over a shooting on the Atlin Road.

Local residents became accustomed to seeing the bears around and enjoyed their presence. Now after more than a year's consultation, the board that advises the territorial government on wildlife is reviewing restrictions to protect roadside grizzlies in popular viewing areas.

Harvey Jessup, co-chair of the wildlife advisory board, says the ban is a compromise.

"Keep in mind we are talking 30 metres, the cleared right of way and if a hunter wants to step off the cleared right of way they can still hunt in the bush, and those highways were identified for a reason because in the last multiple years that's where the complaints came from," Jessup says.
    
The proposed ban stretches from Jakes Corner to Kluane Lake - including the Haines Road, Tagish Loop, and the Atlin Road.

Gord Zealand, the president of the Yukon Fish and Game Association, says the ban goes too far.

"If there's conservation requirements, no question," Zealand says.

"Even if it's not a conservation issue and you had a couple bears or a family you wanted to look after then close it, but this wholesale approach? Sorry, we don't buy into this one," he says.

Yukoners have until Nov. 28 to comment before the proposal goes to the government for consideration.