“You never know when the devil might come calling.”
-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf.

Who is to protect the environment from Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent?

The National Wildlife Federation released a paper today stating that “tar sands and oil and gas development in Canada is contributing to the decline in caribou herds. Rather than improve environmental practices to protect and restore caribou habitat, Canadian wildlife officials are poisoning wolves with strychnine-laced bait.”

Environment Minister Peter Kent said. “Culling is an accepted if regrettable scientific practice and means of controlling populations and attempting to balance what civilization has developed. I’ve got to admit, it troubles me that that’s what is necessary to protect this species…”

In fact, over 500 wolves have been killed in the last five years. The Government of Alberta has spent over a million dollars on the project which includes not only strychnine poisoning but also shooting them from the air.

Peter Kent’s logic is that a wolf cull is necessary in order to protect the remaining caribou. WTF?

And that is not even to mention the long-term harmful impact strychnine has on the rest of the environment. Studies have long proven that the poison eventually affects other ecosystems.

On January 25, CBC reported that Peter Kent declined an emergency caribou protection order. Why? There are plenty of them elsewhere in Canada.

Peter Kent is doing more to prevent the environment from impacting on tar sand development than the other way around. Where is the ethics? Who is the true radical here? Who are the real predators?