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Stephen Fry wants King's Guard to ditch bear fur (www.bbc.co.uk)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (13 children)

"Tradition is never an excuse for cruelty," says Mr Fry, who is narrating a video which shows undercover film of how black bears are killed.

A supporter of the animal welfare group made an undercover video which claims to show hunters putting down buckets of strongly-scented food as bait, and then shooting black bears with crossbow bolts when they approach.

This doesn’t exactly seem like a revelation to me, and I don’t know why you’d need undercover footage… how do you think they hunted bears?

Living their life in nature before being killed is about as good as it gets for animals. I thought they were gonna say they’re caged from birth or something.

Besides a POV of “killing any animal is wrong”, I don’t really see an issue. It appears to be regulated and as long as they’re maintaining the bear population appropriately why is it any different than hunting deer or killing a cow for leather?

I think it would be a good thing if they moved away from real bear fur for an alternative, but don’t see it as a real issue either way tbh.

[–] glimse 39 points 10 months ago (8 children)

The problem is that wild animals are being killed so an unelected king in a democratic country can have his guards wear fancy hats

[–] withabeard 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Chances are (and I'm up for being corrected on this). The bears are being culled to maintain population levels.

In all areas of the world, human interaction with nature means we've upset the usual ecosystem balance. We've moved predator/prey ecosystems, we've changed their sizes and we've decided there are big areas we just don't want the predators. Culling/management is necessary to minimise our further impact.

These bears are going to be shot with or without the furs being used. They're not being killed so someone can have the fancy hats.

[–] glimse 13 points 10 months ago

Perhaps not the best source

Freedom of information act requests have revealed that the UK government does not know the details of the supply chain for the fur it buys, as MP John Nicolson pointed out during the debate:

"The evidence is that most bears in Canada are killed by trophy hunters who know there is a market for the skins. Canadian Government culls are infrequent and only authorised to kill the small number of bears straying too close to human habitation. The MoD has no idea about the provenance of the dead bears it buys. The evidence, again, is that they are often nursing mothers. When they are killed to make a hat, their cubs starve to death."

Canadian bear hunt policies are largely economically driven, despite many questioning the financial benefits over ecotourism investments. Black bear hunting trips cost thousands of dollars and, since the Government of Ontario has reintroduced the spring bear hunt, non-resident trophy hunters are paying to bait and kill bears for sport as they emerge from hibernation. Rather than being a by-product of wildlife management, bear pelts from Canada mostly come from recreational hunts.

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