Canada: grizzly bear hunting quietly reinstated in Alberta

The Albertan legislature permitted the hunting of individuals deemed to be ‘problem bears’. Photograph: AP

The Canadian province of Alberta has quietly reversed a two-decade ban on hunting grizzly bears, in what conservations described as a “slap in the face” amid continuing debate over the future of the threatened species.

Alberta first banned the hunting of grizzly bears in 2006 after the population of the species, which once reached as many as 9,000 bears, collapsed due to generations of overhunting, agriculture development and urbanization.