‘It’s shameful, it’s horrifying’: B.C. conservationists call for end to controversial wolf cull

Every year the B.C. government hires contractors to kill hundreds of wolves to help save the dwindling caribou herds. Most of the wolves are shot from helicopters.

Conservationists are once again calling for an end to B.C.’s controversial annual wolf cull, saying it is cruel and unnecessary.

Every year the B.C. government hires contractors to kill hundreds of wolves to help save the dwindling caribou herds. Most of the wolves are shot from helicopters.

The program started in 2015. The Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship told Global News Thursday that 280 wolves were killed this past winter and more than 1,700 have been killed since the program started.

Advocate and activist Sadie Parr said she became aware of the wolf cull in B.C. around 2007, which she said was being done “under the guise of caribou recovery.

“But the fact of the matter is, we’re still destroying caribou habitat to this day.”

Parr said it was in 2015 that the aerial gunning of wolves began in the province after the B.C. Wolf Management Plan was released a year earlier.

“So it’s been seven or eight consecutive years of winter aerial gunning programs that have expanded over that time.”

Parr has spent years investigating the program and among the many things about it that disturb her is the so-called Judas Wolf technique. This involves capturing a wolf in a net and putting a radio collar on it to lead government-contracted shooters back to its pack so they can be killed.