Camille Labchuk is an animal-rights lawyer and executive director of the animal law advocacy organization Animal Justice Canada
Shoot first, ask questions later. Disturbingly, it's not just humans who are vulnerable to excessive police use of force.
The latest fatality of a police shooting is an innocent black bear, shot to death by the Toronto Police in the wee hours of Saturday morning. The unlucky bear most likely wandered into city limits in search of food, but paid with her life – bleeding out and dying in a backyard in Scarborough.
It's an unjustifiable travesty to kill a wild animal who wasn't harming anyone, and people are rightfully angry that the bear wasn't simply tranquilized and removed from the city. The Toronto Police claim to have no tranquilizers despite a $1-billion annual budget, so it's little wonder they have been inundated with angry phone calls from the public.
But let's reserve some of our outrage for Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, which shares the blame. Wildlife officials were asked to bring their tranquilizing guns to the scene but refused to show up, citing risk to their officers.
And what about the supposed risk posed by this lone bear? I suggest that readers take hand-wringing claims of a risk to public safety with a healthy dose of skepticism. The Ministry's own website tells the public that black bear attacks are extremely rare, and that's the truth. Out of thousands of sightings of black bears in Canada and the U.S. every year, on average there is only one black bear-caused fatality every few years. By contrast, dogs kill an average of 17 people every single year.
This particular bear showed absolutely no signs of threatening behaviour. Black bears are not known to be aggressive or ferocious, although we do know that they are highly intelligent, curious, family-oriented animals who form strong family and friendship bonds with other bears.
The police called the bear shooting a measure of last resort, yet in this case it was anything but. The bear was tracked for only a few short hours between the first sighting around 10 p.m. and the 2 a.m. shooting – perhaps the most convenient time for a bear to be on the loose as the streets are relatively empty overnight, further minimizing any risk to public safety.
Bears are exceedingly rare in the Greater Toronto Area, but this is not the first time a bear has shown up and it won't be the last. Police gunned down another black bear in Newmarket two years ago – again, after wildlife officials failed to show up with tranquilizers. That tragic incident sparked a similar degree of public outrage, and it's appalling that officials weren't better prepared with non-lethal solutions this time around.
Wildlife shootings are routine in all parts of the country, but they shouldn't be. It must never be the case that at the first sign of discomfort or inconvenience, our public agencies suddenly become exempt from showing basic decency toward other species. Society expects our officials to treat other creatures with respect, and animal shootings run contrary to community standards of compassion and decency.
As human development further encroaches into wild areas, we can guarantee that human-wildlife encounters will continue. And unless we want this heartbreaking page in our history to repeat itself yet again, wildlife officials and police forces need to develop a humane, non-lethal wildlife strategy that protects public safety and protects animals from being mercilessly slaughtered. Let's hope this bear's needless and heartbreaking death can at least be the catalyst for policy changes we so desperately need.