With wolves still roaming, Council is now writing for action from the Province.

Prince Rupert's City Councillors had one more go round on the theme of wolves and the need for a Conservation Officer to be based in Prince Rupert, bringing back a motion from last month from Councillor Wade Niesh for action.

With more urgency to the issue relayed by the councillors, that from an attack in Port Edward in late May council members were unified in their desire to have the Province take action and post a Conservation Officer in this community for at least that portion of the year when the calls for assistance are on the rise.

Mr. Niesh reprised many of his original themes from last month including the fact that the topic comes up at the same time year after year.

"Since that was brought up, obviously we had an incident in Port Ed which is only going to strengthen the reasoning that we do need to send this letter ...  I'm not asking for a full fledged service but I think we should be asking for an Officer, whether that be an officer part time during part of the year, or during that time when the wolves are at their busy time. But I do think that it's warranted"

Councillor Adey spoke to the topic as well observing as to the impact of the development on Kaien Island and how its squeezing the habitat of the wolves, he also made note of community encounters with bears and how with no Conservation Officer based here, a good number of the calls fall to the RCMP for action.   

The councillor also highlighted that with an officer based in Prince Rupert there could also be education and mitigation programs that could be put in place in the community, adding that placing a Conservation Officer here would be an asset for the community.

Councillor Niesh picked up on Councillor Adey's themes on the RCMP and noted how these incidents are taking away from the regular duties of the local detachment and how chasing down wolves is not their job and not an efficient use of taxpayers money.

Councillor Cunningham agreed with Councillor Niesh and noted that it was not an RCMP matter, reinforcing some of the dangers to the community and observing how it is an issue which the city has had much frustration in getting the attention of the province towards.

"The RCMP are a municipal local police force hired by us to look after law and order and a lot of other problems and this is a provincial matter that has been going on for years. And I think that the province has neglected it to the point where now it's a serious problem"

Also speaking to the topic were Councillor Randhawa who echoed many of the same themes, suggesting that the City also request that the Conservation Officers maintain their presence in the community until an answer to the letter is required. Councillor Skelton-Morven also offered up some thoughts based on many of the same themes heard previous.

As the conversation came to an end, Council approved the motion to forward their correspondence to the province for attention and action.

You can review the discussion from the City's Video Archive starting at the 32 minute mark.



Some of those past encounters with wildlife can be charted from our Northwest Emergency Responder files here.

For more notes on Monday's City Council session see our Council Timeline feature, for a wider overview of past Council Discussion themes see our archive page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.