There is ‘overwhelming evidence that MNR staff are ignoring the excessive harvest that is the most likely cause of the declines and the loss of substantial economic benefits’
In the past I have written, using a combination of MNR information and my management experience, about “what” the Ministry of Natural Resources has done to cause the decline in the moose and caribou populations.
Their efforts have resulted in an 83-per-cent decline in moose harvest, and a 70-per-cent loss of moose hunters. Other than describing it as “incompetence”, I haven’t talked about why that has happened and persisted for over 40 years. The most important reason, at least to my way of thinking, is simply the way MNR managers have come to think about (or not) and do things.
Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.”
Most MNR managers do what was done before and seldom think critically about, or analyze, factors that created failures, if they even recognize failures. They certainly don’t acknowledge any.
Compounding problems
Problems in the moose program were identified decades ago and there is no evidence that managers thought, let alone rethought, solutions. In fact, they are ignoring proven ones and seem to be retrenching behind ones that were never successful.
An example was delaying the season opening for moose about 2008 to reduce the harvest. Season manipulation (especially after rut and before freeze up) has never worked. Instead of using reduced seasons in an attempt to reduce harvest, archery seasons were increased from one to three weeks during the rut when moose are most vulnerable to hunting, and from which the gun hunt was removed to reduce the harvest in the first place.
I’m not sure I follow the logic of that strategy.
Of course, this is to provide more killing opportunities (tags) because archery success is lower. Wounding loss is expected to be higher, but MNR isn’t assessing that from either guns or archery.
It is an inconvenient truth that some animals are shot and lost. Because wounded animals must come out of the sustainable harvest, having that information could reduce tags by four per cent or more, based on historic estimates.
Although not directly related to the main theme of this article, Graydon Smith was replaced by Mike Harris Jr. as minister. This has a bearing on both the moose and black bear management programs. When he was premier, Harris Jr.’s father shut down the spring bear hunt for purely political reasons and without consulting anyone responsible for managing bears.
Taking my own advice, I wrote Mr. Harris describing the three major problems he faces regarding moose (dysfunctional information system, ineffective harvest planning and control, and co-management with First Nations). Like his predecessor, he has not responded to my correspondence. As a reader commented, “Doug Ford won’t care about moose until he can figure out a way to get them to deliver beer.” It seems Mr. Harris Jr. has the same level of thinking.
Despite overwhelming evidence that MNR staff are ignoring the excessive harvest that is the most likely cause of the declines and the loss of substantial economic benefits, neither minister has called for an independent review of the moose program.
When Premier Mike Harris closed the spring bear harvest in 1999, just months before it was due to open, he decided to open the “fall’ season in late summer (Aug. 15) to compensate outfitters. When the spring hunt was reinstated between 2014 and 2021, the fall season was not returned to Sept. 15, permitting a 33-per-cent increase in hunting opportunity over the original seasons.
In late summer, bears are in a state of hyperphagia, eating as much as possible to fatten up for winter. They are especially vulnerable to hunting. Late summer is also an important time for females with cubs. There is a high rate of orphaning that MNR plans to fix by extending an unenforceable law to protect cubs and females “accompanied” by cubs.
I was unable to find out how many charges were laid under this law, but I expect it was close to zero. I should note that unlike moose and deer, there is no bear management system, except for open seasons to kill them during 16 of their 24-week active period.
If there are concerns about overharvest, and there should be, managers are failing to address them by thinking about an effective management system. That is the topic of another article.
The Framework for Enhanced Black Bear Management was written in 2009. A “framework” appears to be little more than a “concept of an idea for a plan” (ask Donald Trump to explain), something to think about thinking about, but not an actual plan.
Superlative in their language and recognition of social values, they are very short on substance. In 10 pages of large font text (3,400 words), “landscape” and “sustainability” are mentioned 31 times each and “ecosystem” 24 times.
There were two important concepts identified in that report that have been ignored for the past 17 years. They are a harvest allocation policy (Objective 4, presumably including First Nations) and assessing non-hunting bear mortality (Strategy 1.2.3). I would really love to sit down with the folks charged with implementing these frameworks and get an explanation of exactly what has been accomplished. I think it would be a very short discussion.
One of the problems that MNR has had is that (almost) everything they have done has been reactive (trying to fix problems) rather than proactive (trying to prevent them in the first place). For moose, that meant providing more opportunities to kill (tags) even while the population was declining, while ignoring the evidence and refusing to fix the failed tag allocation and harvest control systems.
The only proactive things I can think of are selective harvest for deer and moose and slot-size limits for fish. It took 15 years to create the information system to show that selective harvest for moose was not being used effectively, but that evidence has been ignored for 25 years since. I think being proactive is an intuitive skill, but one that can be developed. It requires a real desire to solve problems and actively looking for signs of them before they occur.
Corporate culture club
That brings me to the main topic. When I watch TV, I gravitate towards documentaries. One series I’ve had an interest in is “Mayday, Aircraft Disasters”. One recurring theme is how “corporate culture” has led to some of the disasters.
Several are top-level military pilots failing to adapt and conform to the more regulated role of commercial pilots. Another example is Boeing Aircraft, when the culture of safety and technical excellence encouraged by engineers was changed to a culture of cost-cutting and profit when it merged with McDonald-Douglas and was led by accountants. It almost destroyed the company.
It takes time and effort to change culture, but leaders must make a conscious decision what that culture will be, starting at the top and by example.
When I joined MNR, and until several years prior to my retirement, the deputy minister was a career natural resource manager, either a forester or biologist who understood the principles, if not all the details of various activities. All deputies I knew or heard of were respected people of integrity and wisdom.
Their role, in addition to leadership (providing direction toward better service or to prevent future problems) was to advise the minister, and thereby the government, on real management needs (anticipated problems, solutions, funding, etc.) not vague and unmeasurable male moose pellet ideas like protecting undefined and unmeasurable ecosystems and biodiversity.
Deputies rose from the bottom and had an established record of success on the way up. The current deputy holds a degree in political science and government from Brock University. That information was removed from the site after I first read it. I wonder why, if transparency is so important to this ministry?
I don’t recall any political scientists being hired at the district level to manage resources. His assistant deputy is a biologist, probably with just a bachelor’s degree (although I couldn’t find anything regarding her history or achievements). With those levels of knowledge, I can understand why problems have not been addressed. Ignoring evidence that moose hunters, harvest and populations continue to decline and ignoring the uncontrolled harvest by First Nations suggest that these leaders are not thinking about or addressing identified and obvious problems.
The failure of corporate culture seems to have started with affirmative action. With a daughter and three granddaughters, I completely support affirmative action, but politically correct implementation resulted in some very unqualified people in positions of importance – not that a lot of men have done much better. There were just more men to select from.
At my retirement, the director of the wildlife branch was a forester. I hear stories that few new employees have any fish- or wildlife-related experience (“book learned city kids”, but it is not their fault).
The best example I know of was the senior policy advisor for bear management, who held that position from shortly after my retirement until a few years ago. She started as an assistant to one of the senior biologists (a file clerk?). She has a bachelor’s degree in biology as was the custom for all hires at the time. That’s five courses in any of a myriad of biological specialties, not usually resource management courses at that level.
Her field experience was one week each year following the bear research biologist. She was a nice person and a friend, but that’s poor qualification for leading or “advising” on a program of such importance.
You can’t lead if you know nothing about what you are leading and don’t have the background knowledge to be able to know the difference between good and bad advice from your advisors. It is perfectly understandable that the moose program is such a dismal failure. Recognizing his professional background, the deputy’s advice to the minister is probably that moose hunters won’t change an election, so you can ignore them.
At one time MNR was well respected, especially in Northern Ontario where employees were a part of the community and where resource utilization was a prominent part of daily life.
Now, half the regional offices have been closed. District offices have become work centres and doors are locked. You need an appointment if you want information, but will probably be told to file an FOI (Freedom of Information Act) request or be sent to a website.
The culture seems to have deviated, especially at senior levels, from a sincere and dedicated interest in doing the best job and adapting to a changing world. Mistakes were made within the moose program during my career, but most were addressed as best we could with the information available, and immediately. No five-year assessment periods.
Some good practices (tag transfers, direct control on harvests) were botched because they were changed by committees who didn’t understand how the tools were designed to work. With reorganization in 1996, several “staffing adjustments” (downsizing), and “modernization”, the culture changed to writing plans that were ignored and satisfying hunter expectations while ignoring evidence of excessive harvest.
All this was directed by MNR managers at the corporate level. Those changes caused me to take early retirement, although my dedication to moose management has obviously remained strong.
That culture became worse by employing misleading information, implementing programs that are not supported by hunters or the general public and bullying hunters into complying with unnecessary and questionable programs like mandatory reporting when they should be striving for understanding, co-operation, and support.
I know of no one who has the slightest respect for MNR, including (especially?) former employees. Even at the most senior levels there was evidence of cultural ignorance when they added “forestry” to the name of the ministry. For 60 years, I thought forests were just another natural resource, like fish, wildlife, land, water, and parks. Apparently they are something different and special!
It just shows how old fashioned and out of touch I am when subjugated to the wisdom of such esteemed leaders.
If MNR is ever to successfully manage resources to optimize public expectations for social, cultural and economic benefits, it needs to change its culture back toward real resource management by kindling public understanding and support, implementing effective management systems, and abandoning the misinformation and meaningless documents that have prevailed for two or more decades. Correction! Those documents were abandoned the day after they were finished.
They need to be replaced with meaningful ones, describing things that should be done based on real evidence that be measured, tested, and modified through adaptive management.
Alan Bisset is a retired regional moose biologist and wildlife inventory program leader with the former Ministry of Natural Resources. He has written and published many papers on moose management, both Internally and in scientific journals. Bisset lives in Strathroy, west of London, Ontario. You can find his other submissions by typing “Alan Bisset” into the search bar at Sudbury.com.