This past week, Raincoast publicly announced their purchase of the “guide and outfitting” rights to a giant chunk of the coastal BC forest. This is great news of course, (and recieved a decent level of press coverage). There is also at least 2 substantial ironies here to be savored or despaired over depending if you’re a glass-half-full or half-empty type.

By buying the hunting rights, Raincoast now has control in perpetuity over hunting in that chunk of the coastal forest. Perpetuity is a great word, especially in this context. Raincoast is opposed for many good reasons to the hunting of large predators there and in particular grizzly bears, and that’s why they’ve spent the money. But to “maintain” those hunting rights, the government requires that there in fact be some hunting going on. So pick your irony:

1. if you can put together the cash, the government is willing to sell you the rights to shoot-and-kill animals in nominally publicly owned crown lands, but they draw the line at selling you the rights to not shoot those animals. Canada’s government is not without it’s principles.
2. Raincoast, one of the better defenders of BC’s coastal environment, is now I assume effectively the largest hunting outfitter in the province. This joke was made by Raincoast Conservation Director Ian McCallister at his recent slideshow, at the time it was a little unclear just what the implications were (how much was joking, how much was sadly serious). More recently announced details of the plan suggest that for-meat hunting of ungulates by local Native communities – I assume that ungulates means moose and deer – is going to fill the required shooting tally.

So that’s an excellent workaround, but I almost (almost) wish the government would get sticky on this point. Imagine the comic possibilities if Raincoast was required to facilitate some level of trophy hunting in order to keep it below previous levels. As a wealthy (probably American) blood-and-guts trophy hunter, your (probably Canadian) granola-eating NGO-working guide in the wilderness (work for Timmy, yay!) would want almost nothing in the world so much as to see you fail at the task he was legally mandated to assist you in. Awkward. Very awkward.

On further reflection, no that definitely wouldn’t be good. But it would be less bad than previous levels of bear carnage, and way funnier in a Fawlty Towers way.

Full disclosure: the author of this article about the ironic elements of the “Raincoast-buys-hunting-rights” story fully and fondly intends to apply for work with Raincoast Conservation Society in the near future, and does not confirm or deny that he participated in the entropification of that bear hunting blind that time.