‘I Love Hunting Club’: Wealthy Chinese Paying $80,000 to Hunt Polar Bears in Canada

Wealthy Chinese businessmen are paying $80,000 to travel to Canada’s arctic to hunt and kill polar bears.

According to Mail Online and Treehugger, a Chinese company called the ‘I Love Hunting Club’ is selling tour packages to Canada’s Great White North. For around $80,000, wealthy hunters get airfare, accommodation, a hunting permits, a tracking guide, weapons, taxidermy services (bear rugs are extremely popular) and a DVD chronicling their manly achievement.

According to an ‘I Love Hunting Club’ brochure,

“The polar bear is the most extreme of natural enemies in North America. Their weight can reach one ton, and they can grow to more than three meters in length. The huge male bear specimens are the most majestic, most beautiful of hunting prizes!”

The company is run by Scott Lupien, an American hunting expert. Lupien says he is helping fulfill the high Chinese demand for polar bear skins. He also claims that hunting the threatened animals is actually good for them.

“If a male runs into a female with cubs, it attacks the cubs. Hunting males actually helps the young population survive,” Lupien told Mail Online. “The animal rights guys know this but they don’t want to admit it. And if you believe the ice caps are melting as some claim, these bears are going to die anyway, so you may as well hunt them.”

Hunting polar bears, which are threatened due to melting arctic ice caused by climate change, is illegal in the United States. But Canada allows for up to 500 polars bears to be hunted and killed each year by foreign “sportsmen.”

Treehugger points out the irony of Canada allowing polar bears to be killed for $80,000 when Canadians recently said they were willing to pay $420,000 per animal to save the species.

Video of an ‘I Love Hunting Club’ black bear hunt:

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