Concerns raised over continual changes to Alberta's trapping and hunting rules

Wildlife conservation groups are raising the alarm over the Alberta government's decision to lift trapping and harvesting limits on wolverines.

Wolverines are the most recent animal in a growing list that are facing relaxed regulations in Alberta.

Until recently, people were almost entirely prohibited from trapping wolverines on Crown land and had limitations on lynx, river otters and fishers (a weasel-like mammal), but Alberta Forestry Minister Todd Loewen has lifted those limits to make it open season on all four.

Loewen said the decision was made to collect more data on how many wolverines there are.

"There's no reason we need to kill the wolverines in order to study them," said Matt Scrafford conservation scientist with Wildlife Conservation Society Canada. "It is not the best way to study this species. There are other ways we can understand wolverines that we don't have to go and harvest them."

Wolverines are considered threatened species in Ontario, but in Alberta, they are considered as "data deficit."

Scrafford has long studied the wolverine population in Canada, and acknowledges that the animals are difficult to study, but says there are better monitoring methods and less invasive techniques -- like camera-tracking -- to learn about the population.

Scrafford says increasing trapping could have detrimental impacts on the animal's population.

"They are very low-density and have low reproductive rates, so it has a big effect on them and it's not a very smart way to study those populations."

One of the most recent population estimates for wolverines in Alberta, completed in 2003, estimated fewer than 1,000 breeding ones left in the province.

A spokesperson for the Alberta Forestry Ministry said the former quote system was "indefensible" because quotas were in place where wolverines have not been seen in decades, and low quotas were in place in areas where wolverines are abundant.

"Under the new framework, trappers will register their harvests, and their logbooks will provide accurate, real-time data on furbearer populations in each area, ensuring that we have the information needed to make informed decisions," said Alexandru Cioban.

Alberta Forestry says the decision to update the hunting regulations followed extensive consultation with the Alberta Trappers Association, "who has long been the primary source of data on these species and has called for change."

The Alberta Wilderness Association believes there is a conflict of interest with Loewen's background as a hunter and trapper, which it first thought was problematic when the Wildlife Management Division was transferred to his department.

In his 2024 annual public disclosure to the Ethics Commissioner of Alberta, Loewen once again reported receiving dividends from Red Willow Outfitters in Valleyview, which offers guided hunts for bears, deer, moose, elk and wolves.  

Loewen's office denies the minister's actions are a conflict of interest. 

Conservationist Ruiping Luo with the Alberta Wilderness Association says the recent decent around wolverines and other fur-bearing animals, in addition to changed hunting regulations for other animals, reflects bias.

In the summer, Alberta's government introduced a program allowing targeted hunts on problem grizzly bears after a nearly 20-year ban on hunting the threatened species. 

The province also increased the hunting quotas on female cougars from 32 to 72 for the 2024 hunting season, a 125 per cent increase province-wide, due to "unacceptably high" numbers of the animal.

Luo says the minister has also expanded the species that can be hunted under a special license, such as Mountain Goats, and has expanded seasons and locations for hunting.

"We are concerned because a lot of these don't have a lot of science behind them, they're not based on any evidence that says this is a good decision, and because there is often no public consultation or announcement of these changes, all of these changes seem to benefit hunters and trappers at the cost of all Albertans," she said.

"We expect our ministers to make decisions that benefit all Albertas, we expect them to be open and transparent and we expect those decisions to be science based. I don't think that's a high expectation. I also don't think that's been met."

Lance Rath lives in Calgary and started a petition to reverse the trapping decision about wolverines and other furbearing animals after reading about the decision online.

The petition has garnered just over 1,700 signatures over the last several weeks.

"(It) got me riled up a little bit and seemed unfair, so I decided to start the petition. I wanted to increase some awareness around this, I just felt it was a mistake – the decision."

He acknowledges that he's not an expert on the animals, but wanted to raise awareness about the decision made.

"It's not my spirit animal or anything," he said. "I just think it's important that the remaining amount of wildlife out there (are taken care of) and this just seems to go against that."

- With files from The Canadian Press