Commercial harvesting of wild huckleberries is happening on a scale we’ve never before seen in the Kootenays. A thousand pounds per day are crossing the US border at Kingsgate.
Thirty-odd commercial pickers are camped out at Yahk, working with special harvesting rakes, and intend to keep the harvest going until frost—and they aren’t the only crew harvesting berries.
Will the threatened Yahk area grizzly bear population struggle to find the 30-60 pounds of berries they need every day to fatten up for the long winter? Will people picking for their own use be out of luck? Currently in BC, there are no regulations on commercial picking of huckleberries. It’s a free for all.
Please join us to call on BC Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Minister Doug Donaldson to ban the commercial harvest now!
Go to Petition to Send Letter to Minister Donaldson http://wildsight.ca/blog/2017/08/17/commercialhuckleberries/
Humans complain that bears wander into their space to eat garbage. Humans go into the forest and haul away hundreds of pounds of berries that the bears rely on to survive the winter. The bears then become a “nuisance’ and are shot. What people don’t know is that very few bears are relocated and most are killed. Mother bears are killed the babies relocated but without the mother to show them how to prepare for winter they die. As long as there is a market for these berries more innocent animals will die. We must take responsibility for our actions and stop causing so much damage.
this is so wrong