Long-awaited action comes as surveys suggest Alberta home to fewer than 400 bears
 
Darcy Henton
The Edmonton Journal

Friday, October 05, 2007

Grizzlies are disappearing from Alberta.

EDMONTON - The province is ready to implement a grizzly bear recovery strategy it received nearly three years ago, says a government official.

Sustainable Resource Development Minister Ted Morton is expected to announce steps the province will take to protect grizzlies within the next two weeks, SRD spokesman Darcy Whiteside said Thursday.

“We’re really close to getting something signed off,” he said. “This final approval and looking at the next steps like access management for core grizzly habitat.”

The long-awaited action on the recovery plan comes as provincially funded field surveys suggest the number of grizzly bears in the province is dramatically less than previously estimated.

Biologists estimated in 2000 that there were about 1,000 grizzly bears in the province - a number that prompted a government-appointed endangered species conservation committee to call for the bears to be listed as a threatened species.

The province responded in 2006 by suspending the annual Alberta spring grizzly bear hunt for three years while it tried to get a more accurate count of the grizzly bear population.

The latest surveys, which suggest the total grizzly population could be less than 400, have prompted calls from conservation groups for the government to take immediate action to save the bears.

“The numbers have indicated lower estimates than what a lot of people, both inside and outside of government, had heard of before,” conceded Whiteside.

Biologists say they have identified only about 180 bears between the Yellowhead and the Crowsnest highways, but areas south of Highway 3 and north of the Highway 16 have yet to be surveyed.

“We’re not going to have a complete picture until the end of next year, but it’s blindingly clear that things are way worse than we thought they were,” said Nigel Douglas, executive director of the Alberta Wilderness Association.

“Grizzly bears are in a whole lot of trouble.”

Douglas said biologists don’t know if they’ve gotten better at counting bears or if there was an actual decline, but the numbers are “really desperately low.”

“The longer we dither about it, the harder and more expensive it will be to do something about this,” he said. “It’s fair to say the grizzly bear will disappear … in the long term if we don’t change what we do pretty quickly.”

Jim Pissot, executive director of Defenders of Wildlife Canada, said the implementation of the plan will be welcome and he looks forward to the announcement, but it has been a long time coming.

“There certainly is a need for more aggressive action, particularly since this bear population qualifies as endangered,” he said.

Robert Barclay, a Grizzly Bear Recovery Project member and spokesman, said the team made a number of recommendations to protect the bears, but it believes creating large conservation areas and restricting human access to grizzly bear habitat is essential.

He said some project members are frustrated that the government has taken so long to act on the recommendations.

“We’d obviously like to see the recommendations in the report implemented as soon as possible,” he said. “Things aren’t getting better.”

Setting aside large tracts of restricted access land for grizzly bears protects not just the bears, but the Alberta wilderness, he said.

“The grizzly bear is an umbrella species,” he said. “You conserve it and underneath its umbrella you conserve all sorts of animals and plants.”

Pissot, a Canmore resident, said it goes even deeper than that.

“If we lose the grizzly bear just here in the Bow Valley, I think the mountains lose part of their life. Right now the mountains are a living thing because we have bears in our backyards.”

dhenton@thejournal.canwest.com
© The Edmonton Journal 2007