Winnipeg Humane Society pushes for a ban on spring black bear hunting – CityNews Winnipeg

Winnipeg
By Eddie Huband
Posted September 19, 2025 4:35 pm.
Last Updated September 20, 2025 11:08 am.
The Winnipeg Humane Society is promoting an online survey aimed at lobbying the government to ban spring black bear hunting, citing ethical concerns about using bait compromising fair chase.
“The spring bear hunt focuses on animals who are just coming out of the den with young cubs who are hungry. Hunters use bait stations to lure the animals out, and if you’ve ever seen a bait station, it looks like a big garbage can or a barrel, with human food, all different kinds of food that are not natural for the animal,” said Krista Boryskavich, the director of animal advocacy at the Winnipeg Humane Society.
“I hate to use this analogy, but it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. In this case, it’s like luring bears with a barrel and then shooting them.”
Among other concerns, it’s not required to report the number or sex of bears that are killed.
“About 220 bear cubs were orphaned because of the spring hunt, and in Manitoba, it is illegal to kill a female bear with cubs. The fact of the matter, though, because there’s no requirement to report, we don’t know for sure the number of female bears that are being killed,” Boryskavich explained.
Long-time outfitter Mike Adey thinks that number is more like 10-15 orphaned cubs per year, and tells CityNews it would be a mistake to ban spring black bear hunting.
“I would like to see where they got their data from,” said Adey.
“The majority of people that are hunting are harvesting the meat as well as the hides, but it also keeps the animals in check, so in areas where there’s high populations of bears, it helps, because they become a nuisance to farmers, to cottagers.”
He says that because black bears are nocturnal, using bait is the only way to bring them out in a legal shooting setting, adding that baiting helps to identify sex to ensure that only boars are shot.
“We educate our customers on what we want to see harvested, which is the male black bears; that’s what we want to harvest. So this enables them, because it’s in daylight hours, you can see them at the bait, all our baits are close by, like 14-20 yards, so we’re educating our clients on what we want to see harvested,” said Adey.
However, Boryskavich says, “I think it’s important to look at the protection of black bears because they are not a commodity, they are a living being.”
CityNews reached out to the minister of natural resources, but has not heard back at this time. 
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