In its first year, the 2016 Beaver Derby, held in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan could not escape the wrath of a Vancouver-based animal rights group.
The derby kicked off on April 1st and is set to run for 40 days, closing on May 10th, calling beaver trappers and hunters to collect as many beaver carcasses as possible for cash prizes. Prizes include a top prize of $1,000 cash for the largest volume of beaver carcasses along with a $500 cash prize for the largest beaver killed.
As such, it didn’t take long for the ill-informed anti-hunting groups to take notice.
One such group was the Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals, who have called the event inhumane and ecologically harmful.
“They’re putting a price on wildlife like this, where basically we’re just incentivizing people to go out and just shoot and kill as many beavers as they possibly can, just for a buck,” Adrian Nelson, a spokesperson for the Vancouver-based wildlife association told CTV News.
“It’s really not sound management when it comes to dealing with wildlife populations, and it’s just, in a lot ways, disrespectful to a lot of the management policies that we’ve been working so hard to put into place over the years.”
The event’s organizers have fired back and in turn, have captured the attention of hunters across North America and around the world, asking how they could take part in the competition.
The derby, sanctioned by the Saskatchewan Trappers Association, was created in an attempt to educate current trappers and hunters on the proper methods of utilizing the entire animal, rather than being left to rot in the field.
“They don’t really understand the whole idea of utilizing the entire animal and the fur resources,” Ken Gartner, vice-president of the STA, said. “The main thing is that we don’t want to see these animals left in the field of decay and rot without using the entire fur resource.”
Despite being an iconic animal in Canada, beavers, if not managed properly, often cause irreversible damage by ways of flooding to roadways and agricultural crops. Programs such as the Beaver Control Program are funded by Canada’s Federal Government and provide financial assistance to aid in the management of beavers in the province of Saskatchewan.
On the other hand, this keystone species also provide a very valuable ecological service to the environment. Not only are beavers able to create vibrant wetlands, they also increase plant, bird and wildlife variety by opening the tree canopy, providing both food and cover for other foraging animal species.
The key in this case and any other one with regards to wildlife is balance. Not only do the fees from the sale of trapping and hunting licenses go back into the habitat that sustains these wild animals, the management of their populations are part of the integral balancing act known as sound conservation.
H/T: CTV News
Image: 2016 Beaver Derby Facebook