The division between avid bear hunters and those who want to ban roadside hunting continued Tuesday night, just as it has for more than a decade.

The discussion was courteous but pointed during the two-hour public meeting hosted by the Yukon Fish and Wildlife Management Board.

It was difficult to determine which side was more represented, though a straw poll early in the evening suggested the 60-plus people in the room were split somewhere around 50-50.

The same arguments that have been on the record for years were repeated:

• PRO-HUNTING – Hunters have rights that need to be protected, and there is nothing disgusting nor wrong with shooting bears from the side of the road to bring home meat.

For some, including a couple of hunters who addressed the audience last night, roadside hunting is the only means they have because they can't afford boats and ATVs and all the gear needed to get into the deep woods.

Bear blood is not running in ditches. There's no carnage out there.

Rather, the number of conflicts between hunters and wildlife viewing opportunities is so miniscule that it almost doesn't exist, and certainly does not require any changes to current hunting regulations.

"I think if we want to be able to go out hunting for food, we should be able to go,” said a member of the audience. "The only reason I am here tonight is because I want that opportunity.”

• PRO-VIEWING – There is more value to bears than just meat in the freezer or rugs on the floor.

They provide wildlife viewing opportunities for not only the thousands of tourists who visit the Yukon to see bears, but for regular Yukon families who simply want to take a drive in the evening with their kids.

Visitors generate a substantial amount of income for many Yukoners who depend on the tourism industry for a livelihood.

Surely, the sporting hunter doesn't find satisfaction shooting an unsuspecting animal grazing quietly in the ditch. It's not too much to ask to have certain stretches of highways known for their bear sightings to be off-limits.

"I believe that wildlife viewing and hunting on the highways is incompatible because the bears should be able to come to the highway without being shot,” said another member of the audience.

"I would like to see a one-kilometre ban on hunting on any numbered highways.”

Harvey Jessup, chair of the wildlife management board, explained the background that led to the creation of a working group last year which was charged with examining the issue and providing the board with recommendations to consider.

While the working group has already undertaken research and has met with First Nations and local renewable resource councils to discuss the matter, last night's meeting was an opportunity to hear from the public in general, Jessup said.

He said the board will have an on-line survey about the question available on its website in a couple of days.

It's planning to wrap up the consultation process by May 15 and provide a recommendation or recommendations to the wildlife management board at its meeting in June, he said.

Jessup emphasized that should the board decide to advance a change in Wildlife Act regulations as a result of the working group's recommendation, a whole new round of public consultation would be required.

He also emphasized the law that governs the Yukon, and is protected by the Constitution of Canada, says that rights to wildlife viewing opportunities are of equal value to hunting rights.

There was a challenge last night to the appropriateness of having the First Nations involved in a discussion that will not affect their aboriginal rights to hunt from the road, one way or the other.

It was suggested that if there's a ban on hunting bears from the roadside, it could spring open the door to further prohibitions on hunting other wildlife.

Bruce Bennett, Environment Yukon's former wildlife viewing biologist, said he knows first-hand that visitors to the Yukon want to see wildlife, bears in particular, and especially grizzly bears.

They don't come to see moose, he said.

"As a wildlife viewing biologist, I was not able to promote anywhere in the Yukon for grizzly bear viewing,” said Bennett.

"That is a really hard thing when people ask you, ‘where do you go to view bears?' and we can't point to a place.

"It's not a level playing field.”

Bennett recalled taking a busload of 40 visiting biologists on a road trip.

These were scientists who spent their life working the bush. Yet, when they spotted a grizzly digging up a stump in Takhini River Flats, for 40 minutes they watch, mesmerized.

Lewis Rifkind of the Yukon Conservation Society and its 400 members called for a ban on highway hunting because the practice is not right, and could soon jeopardize the stability of the bear population.

When he got here in 1992, Rifkind said, there were 25,000 residents of the Yukon. There are more than 35,000 now.

"The hunting pressure is just going to get stronger and stronger, and I do not think the bear population is going to be able to take it.”

It was noted last night, however, that the discussion was not about the state of the black bear and grizzly bear populations because there is no issue there.

In fact, as one member of the audience suggested, the number of bears taken by the roadside each year is so small it barely registers, and certainly does not warrant changes to hunting regulations.

A woman in the audience said that when she first arrived in the Yukon, all she could do was hunt from the road because she didn't have the means to do otherwise.

She took two blacks one season, and did a lot of driving. She barely ever saw another vehicle.

"The only vehicle I saw, when the woman stopped, she congratulated me,” she said.

Gord Zealand, executive director of the Yukon Fish and Game Association, said he agreed with others in the room, that if it's not broken, there's no need to fix it.

The association, he told the audience, recognizes the value of wildlife viewing.

"At the same time, we do want to see hunting along the roadways continue.”

A member of the audience said he's an avid hunter who also loves to watch wildlife, as every hunter does.

At 65, he's still able to get around the bush fairly well, and doesn't hunt bears much.

"But if I'm going to shoot a bear and there's one sitting in the ditch, I'm going to save myself a lot of pain, because I have to spend a couple of hours in the hot tub after a good hunt.”

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