Last Updated: Saturday, August 16, 2008 | 11:13 PM ET Comments50 <http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/08/16/grizzly-mauling.html#socialcomments> Recommend27 <http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/08/16/grizzly-mauling.html#>
CBC News <http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.html>  
A grizzly bear mauled and seriously injured a man in Alberta on Saturday.
RCMP said the man was hiking in the bush northeast of Cadomin early in the morning when he was attacked. They said he had not spotted the bear and didn’t realize it was nearby.
Cadomin is on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, southwest of Edmonton.
Police said in a news release that the man was taken to hospital in Hinton, Alta., in serious but stable condition with numerous cuts to his right leg. He was not identified.
Alberta wildlife officials are investigating.
Earlier this month, a woman in Coquitlam, B.C., suffered serious injuries in a black bear attack while she was gardening in her front yard. The bear was later shot by police.
A black bear was also put down after it broke into a house in North Vancouver.
With files from the Canadian Press

Koda and Espen are six-month old grizzly cubs, newly admitted to The Northern Lights Wildlife Society Animal Shelter. The cubs will stay at the shelter for one year for rehabilitation until they are fit to return to the wild.

Submitted photo

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http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/08/08/bc-bears-garbage.html

Last Updated: Friday, August 8, 2008 | Police officers stand next to the body of a bear they shot in a Coquitlam, B.C., yard on Wednesday. (CBC)A Coquitlam councillor has taken aim at the company that collects the city’s trash, claiming its lax performance has led to two incidents involving hungry bears in the past week.

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Published: August 07, 2008 8:00 AM
Updated: August 07, 2008 8:31 AM AMANDA FOLLETT AND CATHY ELLIS BOW VALLEY
This year’s August long weekend was the deadliest on record for bears in the region with at least three killed by trains and vehicles in Banff and Kananaskis.
In Banff National Park, a medium sized adult black bear was struck and killed on the Canadian Pacific Railway in the early hours of Saturday (Aug. 2) east of Lake Louise near Protection Mountain.

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Dean Bassett The Canadian Press

August 6, 2008 at 5:37 AM EDT

FARNHAM GLACIER — Residents blocking a construction project near Invermere say they’ll stay put until a controversial development near West Farnham Glacier receives permits and a signed development plan from the province.  Protesters stopped road-building equipment about 50 kilometres from Invermere along a forest service road that leads into the West Farnham Glacier on the weekend.  Wildsight, the region’s main environmental watchdog, says the road construction is a back-door attempt to move a long-stalled project at Jumbo Glacier along under the guise of a proposed lift and athletes’ training facility.

“Machines are tearing up the alpine in Farnham Creek headwaters as we speak… ,” said Dave Quinn, Wildsight’s Purcell Mountain program manager.

The facilities are part of the proposed Jumbo resort master plan, which remains unsigned at the provincial level.

According to Wildsight, the road construction is taking place through the Farnham Creek headwaters in an alpine area near West Farnham Glacier, adjacent to Jumbo Glacier. If built, Wildsight believes the road will give Glacier Resorts Ltd. an opportunity to build ski lifts inside the proposed boundaries of the resort.

The Calgary Olympic Development Association has operated an athletes training camp on the adjacent East Farnham Glacier since 2005.

Mr. Quinn said four to eight people camped in the area over the past weekend.  Opponents surmised the activity might be an attempt to revive a stale agreement. Mr. Quinn noted that after 20 years the Jumbo Glacier Resort proposal still doesn’t have the necessary rezoning to go ahead. The government says Wildsight’s worries are misguided.

“It’s a matter of improving facilities for Canadian skiers,” said Peter Walters, executive director of tourism operations for the ministry.

Mr. Walters said the road construction has nothing to do with fulfilling the environmental assessment requirements. However, he conceded the proponent must show substantial work on site by October, 2009.

Mr. Walters said the road is an extension of an existing one to serve a new ski training area on the Farnham Glacier.

With respect to the master development agreement, Mr. Walters said the proponent and provincial government continue to work with representatives from the Ktunaxa and Shuswap First Nations on an accommodation agreement with respect to Jumbo.

At that point the province will be in a position to approve the master development plan.

Even if the road work falls within existing agreements, NDP MLA Norm Macdonald says, the protest is an example of the deep distrust local residents have for the B.C. Liberal government, particularly concerning the Jumbo project.

Gillian Riddell, Westerly News, Westerly News

Published: Thursday, July 31, 2008

Conservation officers have made the difficult decision to destroy two young bear cubs that became garbage conditioned and unafraid of humans after one of the two tried to break into a home just outside Ucluelet.

Jeff Tyre, with the provincial conservation service, confirmed a female cub was trapped and destroyed humanely July 24 after she made repeated attempts to break into a home on Willowbrae Road.

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 And now, even as we tremble, we’re stunting his growth.

View full article and comments here http:///Books/2008/07/22/GrizzlyMonster/

By Crawford Kilian

Published: July 22, 2008

TheTyee.ca

The only grizzly I’ve seen was in Jasper, a huge blond coming north from the Athabasca River. It was beautiful and intimidating, but I was more alarmed for the bear than for myself. I was safe in a car on the Edmonton-Jasper highway. The bear was running alongside the highway, looking for a gap in the traffic. I hope it found one.

Since 1978 I’ve spent part of every summer in Jasper, learning something new every time. One thing I finally learned a few years ago is that Jasper isn’t a wilderness. Nothing is.

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Grizzlies at ‘great risk,’ hunting ban urged
Conservationists press premier on matter

Kelly Sinoski
Vancouver Sun

Monday, July 28, 2008
As hunters prepare for the fall season, conservationists are calling on the provincial government to keep the grizzlies out of the hunt.

A coalition of scientists, conservationists and animal advocates sent a letter to Premier Gordon Campbell Monday, suggesting it ban grizzly hunting  because the population is at “great risk” and needs to be protected.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080729.BCGRIZZLY29/TPStory/Environment

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

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Minister Penner Viewing Grizzly Release Preparations July08 Other photos at http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/gallery/index.html#  

Hi All,

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http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=895d8ffb-0c88-47c0-b2a1-217b827a7ac8&k=55985

Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun

Published: Sunday, July 13, 2008PRINCE GEORGE - For two hours orphaned grizzly cubs Suzie and Johnny tested their new-found freedom with curiosity and trepidation.
Raised in captivity and released Saturday northeast of Prince George near the Parsnip River, the grizzlies stepped from a cylindrical steel cage into a logging clearcut.
Black bears released back into the wild often scoot away into the forest, but not these 1.5-year-old grizzlies — raised at the Northern Lights Wildlife Society rehab facility in Smithers since the deaths of their mothers last year.View Larger Image

Female Grizzly Bear Cub “SUZY” awaiting her release from the World’s First Grizzly Rehabilitation Center at Northern Lights Wildlife Center in Smithers, BC.

ROLF KOPFLE / Special to the Vancouver Sun

It had been a long and dusty four-hour drive, and Johnny wasn’t going anywhere until he had a bite of grass. Both bears eventually wandered downhill into a clearing to explore the wild on their own for the first time.

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The Conservation Framework will rank each threatened species and determine what action is needed to protect them

MARK HUME Globe and Mail, July 10, 2008VANCOUVER — With more than 1,600 species identified as being a “conservation concern” and habitat degradation increasing, the British Columbia government has decided to try an innovative approach to protect biodiversity.At a press conference yesterday at VanDusen Botanical Garden, where thousands of protected plants flourish in an idyllic landscape, government officials released a detailed status report on provincial species that are threatened in the wild.At the same time, the government unveiled a new action plan, the Conservation Framework, for saving those endangered species. The plan is to be implemented over the next three years.The status report, Taking Nature’s Pulse, found that 43 per cent of species (1,640) are threatened enough to be of concern, as are four “biogeoclimatic zones” that represent about 5 per cent of the B.C. land base. It also found that 54 per cent (2,055 species) are secure.The groups with the highest proportion of species of concern were mosses, followed by reptiles and turtles, ferns, flowering plants and freshwater fish.Some species of special concern, because their global range is found mostly in B.C., include the Cassin’s auklet, the Cowichan Lake lamprey, the Vancouver Island marmot and the Pacific water shrew.The Conservation Framework proposes to use a complex formula to prioritize or rank each species. Those species will then be sorted into “action bins” that determine what strategies will be used to protect them. Actions including everything from moving to a captive breeding program, setting aside habitat, controlling predators, and simply reducing the harvest levels.Dr. Fred Bunnell, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia and a scientific adviser to the Ministry of Environment, said no other jurisdiction has used an approach as detailed as the Conservation Framework.But he said a number of states and provinces are looking at the approach and may soon adopt it.Dr. Bunnell praised the science that went into preparing both the status report and the Conservation Framework, but he warned the plan won’t work without more support from government.“It needs a carrot and a big stick. … Without it, it’s just another Kyoto,” he said, referring to the international convention on climate change that failed to meet its goals.Dr. Bunnell said a carrot would be adequate funding to implement the Conservation Framework, and the stick would be legislation that made protecting endangered species mandatory.Devon Page, Ecojustice executive director, agreed with Dr. Bunnell’s assessment.He said he fears the new policy is just an empty promise.“There’s no carrot here and no stick - that’s the problem,” he said.“The science here is great. What they’ve come out with is groundbreaking, but government’s response to the plan is lukewarm,” he said. He noted the province has earmarked only $1.2-million this year for a test implementation of the Conservation Framework.“That’ll buy you a house in Vancouver,” he said. “When you think of the billions of dollars going into the Olympics and the hundreds of millions going into Gateway [highway and port expansion], this is just a ridiculously small amount of money.”Dr. Faisal Moola, director of science at the David Suzuki Foundation, said he’s concerned the Conservation Framework will fail because the government will rely on existing regulations. They haven’t succeeded in protecting species in the past, he said. He said without endangered-species legislation, which would require the government to protect habitat where needed, the Conservation Framework won’t work.“With the fate of thousands of species hanging in the balance and global warming threatening to tip the scales, we were really hoping for [an endangered species] law,” Dr. Moola said.But Chloe O’Loughlin, executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, praised the government.“What we have for the first time is hope,” she said. “No, it’s not adequately funded, no it’s not backed by legislation, but it’s a major step forward.”Ms. O’Loughlin said the status report and the Conservation Framework emerged from a collaborative effort between government and environmental organizations, with input from some 50 scientists.“It’s a pretty remarkable effort, and we now have the decision-making tools in place to make a difference,” she said.  

July 09, 2008

Taking Nature’s Pulse (Biodiversity BC): http://www.biodiversitybc.org/EN/main/26.html http://www.biodiversitybc.org/ BC Conservation Framework backgrounder: http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/conservationframework/

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Waiting for the ark
B.C. needs a law to protect its endangered wildlife
 
Faisal Moola and Devon Page
Special to the Sun

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