Federation of hunters slighted by auditor general’s report

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Federation of hunters slighted by auditor general’s report

 

The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters has completed a 14-page response to the Auditor General’s Fish and Wildlife Management Program audit, which it said unfairly and erroneously discredits hunters and anglers.

 

By Garett Williams

Miner and News

Tuesday February 19, 2008

 

The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters has completed a 14-page response to the Auditor General’s Fish and Wildlife Management Program audit, which it said unfairly and erroneously discredits hunters and anglers.

 

The federation completed an analysis of the 28-page audit and said it found inaccuracies from Ministry of Natural Resources reporting errors to an insufficient knowledge of the science of wildlife management in the Auditor General’s office.

 

“In terms of what was presented, there were just so many flaws, there’s no other way of putting it,” said Ed Reid, a wildlife biologist with the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. “The Auditor General’s office was looking at technical aspects of the fish and wildlife program where you would expect the role of the Auditor General to be looking at the cost efficiency of the wildlife programs and are they working.”

 

Reid said the audit noted an increase in deer populations, but failed to capture the progress the ministry has made to increase its management capacity. The number of tags issued has doubled since the last audit, in 1998, to 100,000. Reid said the audit used an average of 87,000 tags, rather than the actual numbers, which plays out as if the ministry hasn’t responded to the increase.

 

“That’s a really critical issue, it’s a sustainability and conservation issue and unfortunately, that wasn’t captured within the Auditor General’s report,” he said. “Instead, it painted a picture that the ministry hadn’t responded. And similarly in moose management, I would have to say the Auditor General’s office just simply is not qualified to interpret what is a fairly complicated ... moose harvest allocation process, which is science based.”

 

Reid said the audit leaned on over-hunting for a declining moose population and while he admitted the moose population may have declined by nearly seven per cent, the number of tags issued to hunters declined by as much as 30 per cent.

 

“There seems to be a focus that hunting and over-hunting and over-harvest seems to be highlighted as more of the singular problem,” he said. “Where as, in the case of moose management, moose hunters have had to give up quite a bit of opportunity and they will willingly, to maintain moose populations.”

 

Increasing bear numbers in Northern Ontario are a root cause for calf decline in some areas, Reid said. Studies out of Minnesota suggest warmer climates place additional stress on nursing cows. The ministry needs increased wildlife resources to complete further studies, he said.

 

A copy of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters response has been sent to both the MNR and the Auditor General’s office. Reid said there has been no response, as far as he knows.

 

However, not everything the Auditor General’s report concluded was wrong, he said. The federation agrees the MNR is underfunded. Reid suggested as much as $30 million in additional funding would be required.

 

“We want accuracy,” Reid said. “... as a citizen, I think, like most people, ‘this is an important independent review of the efficiency of government programs.’ Reasonably, fairly and rightly, it looked at the tasks the ministry has to do and the resources it’s got and concluded that it needs more resources. “We would agree with that.”