Is it time for a moose tax?
Faced with declining game populations and the increasing complexities of wildlife management, people are starting to look at new funding models.
And a tax to help moose and other game animals might be one way to go.
A few years ago, in response to growing concerns that British Columbia’s moose numbers were in decline, the provincial government conducted 20 population surveys. The results were troubling. While in some places numbers were stable, in many regions moose numbers had declined by 50 per cent to 70 per cent.
Word quickly spread among the hunting community about which areas held the fewest moose, and soon there was a pile-on in regions that still had good numbers. That caused alarm in some First Nations communities, where people saw outsiders coming in to shoot moose that local families needed for winter food.