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A woman from Maidstone, Sask., has been fined and suspended from hunting after pleading guilty to trafficking and illegally transporting bear parts.<\/p>\n
The trafficking involved black bear paws and gall bladders, according a news release from the provincial government. Those items are commonly sold on the black market and are often used in traditional Asian medicine. <\/p>\n
The investigation began in March 2022 after the general investigations section of the Ministry of Community Safety (previously called corrections, policing and public safety) received a tip about suspected trafficking of bear gall bladders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Conservation officers launched their investigation in Maidstone, about 50 kilometres east of Lloydminster, before expanding into British Columbia.<\/p>\n
On Nov. 24, Weol Ran Lee of Maidstone pleaded guilty to trafficking in wildlife, including black bear paws and gall bladders, the news release said. She was fined $7,000 and received a five-year hunting suspension.<\/p>\n
Lee also pleaded guilty to unlawfully transporting wildlife parts between provinces after purchasing bear paws illegally in Saskatchewan and taking them into Alberta. That offence resulted in an additional $5,000 fine, and she is prohibited from possessing bear parts for five years.<\/p>\n
A second individual \u2014 a family member of Lee’s \u2014 also pleaded guilty in British Columbia in August to unlawful possession and wildlife trafficking involving bear parts. That person was fined $9,875, the news release said.<\/p>\n
Wildlife trafficking undermines lawful hunting, devalues public natural resources and can negatively affect wildlife populations and ecosystem health, the news release said.<\/p>\n
Officials are reminding the public that citizen tips play an important role in protecting wildlife and supporting enforcement efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-364717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}