Movement to free spirit bear doomed to failure

“Petitions fly over Clover,” says the front-page headline in today’s Kamloops Daily News. As surely as a petition was started to set Clover the kermode bear free, there was bound to be one urging that he be kept in captivity. So far, the “Free Clover” side has a substantial lead.

Some have taken the latter as an attack on the B.C. Wildlife Park, which is a first-class zoo and does a tremendous job looking after its animals, they say. Our zoo does, indeed, do an excellent job of caring for its wildlife, but that has nothing to do with the Clover case.

Clover falls into the philosophical question of whether we should keep wild animals in captivity if setting them free is an alternative. Nothing has been said to suggest there is any benefit to keeping this bear in a cage other than that he will be a major attraction. He will not advance our understanding of kermode bears, nor will he be “an ambassador” for his species, nor will his life in captivity educate us about wildlife in general.

Rehabilitating wild animals for release back into the wild is a lot more sophisticated than hauling them back into the woods and letting them go, which is about all that has been tried with this bear. What a triumph it would be to successfully return a spirit bear to his natural habitat, rather than keeping him for display.

Nevertheless, that’s a highly unlikely scenario. The “free Clover” petitions will fail, because a bureaucratic and political decision on his fate has already been made.

I am perplexed, incidentally, over the name that has been given this bear. “Clover” is a name that might have come out of Walt Disney Studios for an animated movie, or from Winnie the Poo. It evokes a picture of cute and cuddly, good for marketing purposes.

But this is a powerful, regal wild animal. He wouldn’t need a name at all if he wasn’t in captivity.