A ruling from B.C.’s Environmental Appeal Board (EAB) has brought the concept of “hunting” to the forefront, confirming a decision to penalize a wildlife biologist for his actions toward an endangered caribou herd under study in northern B.C.
Doug Heard, a former provincial government wildlife biologist and adjunct professor at the University of Northern B.C., has been dedicated to rehabilitating an endangered caribou herd at Kennedy Siding, a 223-hectare critical habitat for threatened woodland caribou near Mackenzie, B.C., for the past decade.
Heard’s approach to gathering caribou hair for DNA analysis was deemed unlawful. On November 7, 2024, he was observed by Ministry of Water, Land, and Resource Stewardship personnel on a live webcam utilizing a device known as a “cable caster” to shoot small clamps, referred to as alligator clips, in an attempt to collect caribou hair for research at a feeding station. Although Heard possessed a permit to collect DNA samples from hair and fecal pellets, extracting hair directly from the animals was prohibited.
Following the revocation of his permit, Heard appealed the decision. In a ruling issued on May 7, the EAB concluded that his actions fell within the parameters of illegal hunting as defined by B.C. law.
The Wildlife Act defines hunting as the pursuit of animals with the intention of capturing any part of them, including just hair, regardless of whether the wildlife is harmed, killed, or captured thereafter, according to the tribunal.
The province contended that permitting Heard’s actions would essentially sanction individuals to pursue and stalk wildlife as long as their objective was to acquire a specific part of an animal rather than the entire creature. The Environmental Appeal Board concurred.
Pointing to a prior ruling, the tribunal highlighted that the permit allowed Heard to opportunistically collect samples from caribou in an area where hunting was otherwise prohibited.
Heard argued that the cable caster was less intrusive than his prior methods of obtaining hair samples, such as using a dart gun and a toy crossbow, which had been deemed inappropriate uses of his permit in previous board decisions in 2021 and 2022.
Heard was eligible to reapply for a wildlife permit as of May 2 but declined to provide a statement regarding the ruling when contacted by CBC News.
