OTTAWA — A new study of more than 650 wildlife management systems in Canada and the United States concluded that most of them lack “fundamental hallmarks of science,” a finding that the study’s lead author said raises doubts about hunting regulations and animal protection in North America. Using a framework of 11 criteria to determine scientific rigour, biologist Kyle Artelle and his co-authors found only 26 per cent of the wildlife management systems include benchmarks to measure performance, while almost half — 48 per cent — do not publish information about the size of animal populations or how they are changing over time. The study also found that just 11 per cent of the systems publicly report how hunting quotas are set, while only 9 per cent of the systems are subject to “any form” of independent review, something the authors say “deviates substantially” from proper scientific practice. Artelle, a biologist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation and post-doctoral fellow at the University of Victoria, said the findings mean it is difficult to assess how governments choose to manage animal populations that are hunted in Canada and the U.S.“This could be cause for alarm if some of this hunt management is not as rigorous as some might hope,” he said in an interview this week.

Source: thestar March 07, 2018 19:07 UTC