July 2006
Monthly Archive
Mon 31 Jul 2006
by JIM DULLENTY
News-Argus Staff Writer
It would be hard to use moose, elk and deer for roadside animal detection testing at the Lewistown Municipal Airport, so researchers are turning to horses and llamas as substitutes.
Matt Blank (left) and Marcel Huijser, PhD, were in Lewistown last week to oversee preparations for testing of wild animal detection systems at Lewistown Municipal Airport.
Matt Blank, research associate, and Dr. Marcel Huijser, research ecologist, said the horses and llamas will be used in wild animal detection system testing to start in mid-August under the auspices of the Western Transportation Institute, headquartered in Bozeman.
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Mon 31 Jul 2006
Posted by Barb under
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World ‘needs new wildlife body’ By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Polar bears have just been included on the list of threatened species
The world needs a new global organisation dedicated to stemming the loss of plant and animal species.
That is the argument put forward by a group of eminent academics in this week’s edition of the journal Nature.
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Mon 31 Jul 2006
edmontonsun.com
Mon July 31, 2006 www.edmontonsun.com
mailbag@edmsun.com
By BILL LAYE, SUN MEDIA
A bumper berry crop has prompted Parks Canada officials to move a planned trail closure at Banff National Park up by a week.
Parks spokesman Marjorie Huculak said plans to close - or at least restrict access - to the Allenby Pass and Aylmer Pass hiking paths in August were on tap since last winter, given the high number of human-bear encounters over the past five years in those areas.
“But Aylmer Pass is closed already,” Huculak said.
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Sun 30 Jul 2006
Susan Lazaruk, The Province
Published: Sunday, July 30, 2006
The story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears leapt off the page for the children at a Port Moody daycare centre when a young black bear ambled into their kitchen looking for some porridge.
Friday morning’s escapade was a classic crime of opportunity, police said. “The door was open, the bear went in,” said acting Sgt. Brian Morwood-Clark.
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Sun 30 Jul 2006
PROVINCIAL PARKS: Activist worries resorts would be too exclusive and hurt wildlife
John Bermingham, The Province
Published: Sunday, July 30, 2006
A wildlife activist in the East Kootenay has vowed to fight any attempt to build eco-tourism resorts in B.C.’s provincial parks.
Ellen Zimmerman says she’s worried that Elk Falls and Mount Assiniboine parks in the Kootenay could become wilderness resorts for the well-heeled if the B.C. government brings in private operators.
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Sat 29 Jul 2006
By David Burke, Whistler Question, July 27, 2006
Officers trying to trap home invader in Tapley’s area
Conservation officers last week shot and killed an emaciated black bear that had become a danger to picnickers and other users of Lost Lake Park.
The five- to six-year-old bear “should have weighed in the 350- to 400-pound range and our estimate is that it weighed about 100 pounds,” Rob Groeger of the Conservation Officer Service said on Tuesday (July 25).
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Sat 29 Jul 2006
Malcolm Curtis, CanWest News Service
Published: Saturday, July 29, 2006
BEARS I Provincial authorities may be forced to kill nuisance bears caught stealing food from Tofino area campsites, according to a bear advocate.
Crystal McMillan of the B.C. Conservation Corps said bears have been stealing food off barbeques and exploring porches of resort cabins.
As a consequence, several bears have been shot.
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Fri 28 Jul 2006
Miro Cernetig, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, July 28, 2006
VICTORIA — Hotels with more than 100 rooms and helipads could be built in protected wilderness areas under a government call Thursday for private developers to build tourist accommodation in a number of provincial parks.
“Parks play a vital role in conservation, but parks are also for people,” Environment Minister Barry Penner said.
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Fri 28 Jul 2006
Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, July 28, 2006
Environment is now the second most important issue for Canadians, right after health care.
Strategic Counsel polling shows seven per cent of respondents cited the environment as their top issue a year ago. Today, it’s No. 1 for 12 per cent, ahead of frets about terrorism, education or the economy.
Interestingly, the environment is one of two areas on which the Harper Conservatives are politically vulnerable, the other being an increasingly unpopular deployment of Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
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Fri 28 Jul 2006
PETA is calling on Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, and the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) to stop using Canadian bear pelts to make headpieces for the Queen’s Five Guards Regiments and to instead have the hats fashioned from luxurious faux fur.
Bears are still cruelly killed for their hides; they are either shot during hunts or are ensnared—possibly for days—in painful traps. During hunts, as many as one bear in seven does not die immediately after being shot. Some bears escape wounded, possibly dying later from blood loss or starvation. In some Canadian provinces, there are no restrictions on the shooting of mothers who have nursing cubs, leading to the slaughter of entire families during hunts.
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Thu 27 Jul 2006
Coquitlam Now News
Bear rips bumper off car
By Brooke Larsen - Staff Reporter
A mother bear and two cubs wreaked havoc on a Honda Civic while searching for a midnight snack early Monday.
“My bumper was ripped off the car, basically,” said Byron Moody, who parked the car at a friend’s house in the 100 block of Jacobs Road in Port Moody Sunday evening.
“There were imprints and scratches all over the roof of the car and all over the sides. [One bear] sat up on the roof of my car and dented my whole roof.”
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Thu 27 Jul 2006
Bear is gaining weight at home in compound
CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, July 27, 2006
Now that his interest in females has waned, Boo the Bear is doing what every normal male would do after a whirlwind romance gone sour — he is eating, and slowly gaining weight.
The four-year-old bear, who twice escaped from his compound at Kicking Horse Resort near Golden, is recovering after his tastes of freedom.
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Thu 27 Jul 2006
Lauren MacGillivray, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, July 27, 2006
KANANASKIS, Alta. — Grizzly bears across Alberta and southeastern British Columbia could be suffering from harmful levels of stress due to disruptions of habitat, says a team of University of Calgary researchers.
A crew of six students has been comparing satellite images of grizzly terrain to conditions on the ground, creating the most detailed map of its kind in Alberta.
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Thu 27 Jul 2006
Teen thrown from saddle when mount gets whiff of bruin
Yumimi Pang, The Province
Published: Wednesday, July 26, 2006
An 18-year-old Burnaby woman is in hospital with a broken leg after the horse she was riding got spooked by a bear near Burnaby Lake Regional Park.
Danielle Bradner was riding at an equestrian centre just east of the park.
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Wed 26 Jul 2006
Jul 26 2006
By the time the leaves begin to turn, all residential garbage will be collected after 8 a.m. in the hopes of preventing bear attractants from sitting on the curb the night before pickup.
“Bears are far more likely to get into garbage at night when people are asleep,” says Louise Williams, Bear Aware co-ordinator. “So if it’s put out later in the morning, there’s traffic, there’s people and that will scare the bears away.” Williams says this change will reap enormous benefits.
“We’ll see fewer bears coming into town and we’ll see safer communities. Plus, we’ll have fewer calls to the RCMP to come and handle situations,” Williams states.
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