Unhappy hunters march to deliver message to Liberal government

WEST KELOWNA – Hundreds people took to the streets of West Kelowna Saturday, Jan. 31, to protest the provincial government’s proposed changes to the allocation of animals for hunting.

The peaceful protesters marched from the old Zeller’s parking lot on Old Okanagan Highway to Premier Christy Clark’s office on Dobbin Road to deliver personalized letters asking the government to rethink their plan to increase the number of hunting tags given to guide outfitters who cater to tourists.

The president of the Oceola Fish and Game Club Sean Richardson said local hunters would like the government to revise the new hunting permit allocation policy and make it a lot more equitable for the residents and taxpayers of British Columbia.

“This policy is giving between 20 and 40 per cent, depending on species, of the harvestable surplus of wildlife to foreigners,” Richardson said.

The protestors would like to see ten per cent of the tags to go to guides and their customers with the rest to local hunters.

Richardson said his 12-year-old stepson would probably never be able to hunt a moose because the 50-to-one odds of winning a tag are stacked against him and will only get worse.