Alberta designates grizzly bears a threatened species

[Hendrix13]

June 3, 2010
Alberta designates grizzly bears a threatened species

Population and habitat mapping provide key information

Edmonton... The Alberta government has designated grizzly bears as a threatened species in an effort to better protect the bears and sustain the provincial population.

The designation is based on cutting-edge population research and habitat data, as well as a recommendation from the Endangered Species Conservation Committee (ESCC), a group of stakeholders including ranchers, industry, academics, wildlife managers and conservation interests.

“I would like to thank the broad group of partners and staff who assisted in gathering population and habitat information to provide an excellent snapshot of the status of grizzly bears in Alberta,” said Mel Knight, Minister of Sustainable Resource Development. “Their research allowed a thorough population assessment and has provided the necessary baseline to compare future work.”

An independent scientist prepared an updated status report that incorporates a broad range of population and habitat information. This information included Alberta government-sponsored DNA population surveys and satellite mapping of core and secondary habitat. The ESCC recommended the designation based on criteria of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which address population size, population declines, the extent of species’ distribution, how much area is occupied, and potential natural and human-related threats to the populations.

Grizzly bears were recognized in Alberta as a species that may be at risk as early as 2000. A recovery plan was initiated in 2002, followed by steps to collect better population and habitat data. Government committed to improving data gathering, reducing human-bear interactions and managing habitat. The DNA population survey technique, used in B.C., and throughout the U.S., was used in Alberta as the primary tool to reliably document grizzly bear populations. The recovery plan was published in early 2008.

Future conservation actions under Alberta’s Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan include enhancing the province’s BearSmart programs, coordinating research and limiting access to selected roads in grizzly bear habitat. In specific Wildlife Management Units, the hunt may resume once the recovery plan criteria for population and wildlife management objectives have been met. The hunt has been suspended since 2006.

“We share this province with grizzly bears and are committed to ensuring grizzly bears remain part of Alberta’s landscape,” said Knight. “We have been working directly with stakeholders and the public to reduce human-bear interactions and help control access to habitat. Everyone living, working in or just visiting bear habitat has a role to play in conservation.”

For more information on grizzly bear management in the province, including a report on 2009 Grizzly Bear Management Activities and Recovery Implementation, visit www.srd.alberta.ca.

[Zook]

In your capacity as land advocacy director, how does this grizzly conservation announcement affect us? Will they be looking a closing areas to our sport again? If so, is there anything we can do now to help prevent that from happening?

[steve-o]

In your capacity as land advocacy director, how does this grizzly conservation announcement affect us? Will they be looking a closing areas to our sport again? If so, is there anything we can do now to help prevent that from happening?

We could set grizzly traps and get rid of them all together and then we won't have to worry about closures for the purpose of re-habilitating the population of them critters?? We could probably sell the furs for a descent amount that we could put towards trail maintenance too? Thoughts??

[Zook]

Interesting take, Steve-O. My 12-year-old daughter says that's just mean. But she's not a single-track rider . . . yet.
My concern is that the gov't has removed the hunt since 2006 and appears to be all jacked up to "do" more. That makes me concerned.
I don't hunt, I ride.
I'm hoping we don't get thrown out with the hunters to make the admin folks feel good about themselves making Alberta a better place for grizzlies. I dare say we can help their cause by, perhaps, providing any grizzly-sighting data -- scat, chewed trees, actual sightings, etc -- for their benefit.
This is just a suggestion for a way to proceed if the gov't decides we're bad for the grizzly bear population.
Here's hoping they understand we can help, more than hinder, their efforts in this regard.

[steve-o]

whoever the 'dude incharge' is he got airtime on some AM waves (770) this aft talking about them there grizzlies. Must be important, to some people anyway.

[Hendrix13]

In your capacity as land advocacy director, how does this grizzly conservation announcement affect us? Will they be looking a closing areas to our sport again? If so, is there anything we can do now to help prevent that from happening?

Good question. It's too soon to tell how it will affect us. Here's some things that I know.

The independent grizzly bear study that started this basically said that the reason Grizzly bear mortality is so high is because people kill them (many reasons why that might be).
People are killing bears because of all the access we have to Grizzly's natural habitat. Furthermore it goes on to say that linear disturbances like roads and clear cut logging create these Grizzly mortality sinks. So as you can imagine, the Grizzly has no where to hide. It goes to these clearcut areas to eat and there are a ton of trails around them. Someone rides up on a Grizzly eating, and someones going to die. Or, you are driving your truck and trailer down a logging road and you hit a Grizzly..dead bear. Or that train that runs through Banff has a leaking grain car. The grizzly gets an easy meal by the tracks...dead bear.

So there are lots of ways to kill a bear....I have never heard of a bear being killed by a dirt bike though

So their (ie AWA, CPAWS all those environmental groups) suggestion is to limit vehicle and human access in Grizzly habitat.
http://www.canmoreleader.com/ArticleDis ... ?e=2605348

They have divided the province into Primary and Secondary Grizzly habitat.
http://www.srd.alberta.ca/ManagingProgr ... ep2008.pdf

Looks like the Ghost is in the Secondary, can't tell if McLean is in the Primary. The rest of our riding areas do not look to good.

I'm not sure what the next move is...

What can you do? The best thing to do is to write to your MLA and ask what they're doing to protect your riding area from being closed down.

If there are anymore questions, please feel free to ask.

Jamie

[Zook]

Thanks for that, Jamie. But, just to stir the pot, if something as narrow as a single-track trail is deemed "detrimental" to grizzly habitat, where does that leave trail outfitters (horses), hikers and mountain bikes? I'd be interested to see if the disturbances their trails make in the habitat have the "same" effect on this process as out trails.

[Hendrix13]

Thanks for that, Jamie. But, just to stir the pot, if something as narrow as a single-track trail is deemed "detrimental" to grizzly habitat, where does that leave trail outfitters (horses), hikers and mountain bikes? I'd be interested to see if the disturbances their trails make in the habitat have the "same" effect on this process as out trails.

Lets put it this way. As far as I know, Mclean Creek and now Ghost are the only two places in all of Alberta that have designated OHV single track. OHV "single track" isn't really distinguished or represented at a provincial government level from the other OHV's. We tend to get grouped in with the Quad and 4x4's trail users.

Not including snowmobiling, I feel that ORM's on "single track" are the most sustainable of all the OHV's out there. I'm just not sure anyone else knows that

[JohnE]

Protection of grizzlies is important. However, if protection of grizzly bears becomes an issue for motorized recreational access, I would hope regulatory authorities would be convinced to act in an objective fashion rather than knee jerk. According to their bear study, illegal kills and vehicle accidents (trains, passenger vehicles/trucks) are the main cause of grizzly deaths, and it looks like predation is significant. In BMA 5, a huge area of southwestern Alberta, the only two deaths in 2009 were roadkill. This doesn't seem to support a convincing argument that recreational access (including dirt bikes) should somehow be limited as a result, even if such recreational access may result in conflict from time to time.

Skimming the study, it looks like they have been identifying "important" grizzly habitat within the core and secondary areas, for e.g., the Chinchaga country up in the northern Peace Block, where oil and gas and logging access may well be important issues. It would be interesting to know how they will proceed to identify these areas and when, which by itself will help to rule out other areas from increased regulation. A gradation of importance should in my view lead to imposing circumstance specific measures - maybe you implement more bear awareness campaigns in other less important areas, as opposing to affecting Albertans' recreational access to their own public lands.

The bear study also refers to workshops having been held on "access management" and implies they were discussing new access onto public lands, which I think would probably include oil and gas development and logging as opposed to existing recreational access. But there's a huge assumption built into that thought, and it would be good to understand this process better including whether the results of the workshop input is/will be publicly available and whether further workshops will be held.

I appreciate the comment that people can contact their MLA. Also, I wonder if there is a working group list or similar notification process that RMDRA could get on with respect to bears specifically? I'd be interested in helping to track these kinds of on-going processes and to develop input at appropriate times.

[Hendrix13]

Protection of grizzlies is important. However, if protection of grizzly bears becomes an issue for motorized recreational access, I would hope regulatory authorities would be convinced to act in an objective fashion rather than knee jerk.

Objectivity is one of the biggest issues we have. Objectivity is most often based on the "latest" study and rarely looks at all the issues objectively. A good example of this was the "Water Quality Study of Waiparous Creek, Fallentimber Creek and Ghost River" in 2006. The objective of this study was to find a relationship between OHV activity and water quality. The study concluded that OHV activity was not directly related to water quality. Rather, the existing trails resulting in erosion and increased TSS in the water during rain events. Many of these trails are old timber or seismic lines and were never designed to be used for year round OHV access. Instead of making the recommendation to the companies that created these trails to reclaim them, it was decided to limit OHV access, which doesn't directly address the erosion issue ????

According to their bear study, illegal kills and vehicle accidents (trains, passenger vehicles/trucks) are the main cause of grizzly deaths, and it looks like predation is significant. In BMA 5, a huge area of southwestern Alberta, the only two deaths in 2009 were roadkill. This doesn't seem to support a convincing argument that recreational access (including dirt bikes) should somehow be limited as a result, even if such recreational access may result in conflict from time to time..

Nope it doesn't, but that's the argument many are trying to convince the government of.

...it would be good to understand this process better including whether the results of the workshop input is/will be publicly available and whether further workshops will be held.

I don't know of any "workshops" at this time.

...I appreciate the comment that people can contact their MLA. Also, I wonder if there is a working group list or similar notification process that RMDRA could get on with respect to bears specifically? I'd be interested in helping to track these kinds of on-going processes and to develop input at appropriate times.

I'm not aware of anything, This is something you would need to discuss with your MLA.

[JohnE]

Protection of grizzlies is important. However, if protection of grizzly bears becomes an issue for motorized recreational access, I would hope regulatory authorities would be convinced to act in an objective fashion rather than knee jerk.

Objectivity is one of the biggest issues we have. Objectivity is most often based on the "latest" study and rarely looks at all the issues objectively. A good example of this was the "Water Quality Study of Waiparous Creek, Fallentimber Creek and Ghost River" in 2006. The objective of this study was to find a relationship between OHV activity and water quality. The study concluded that OHV activity was not directly related to water quality. Rather, the existing trails resulting in erosion and increased TSS in the water during rain events. Many of these trails are old timber or seismic lines and were never designed to be used for year round OHV access. Instead of making the recommendation to the companies that created these trails to reclaim them, it was decided to limit OHV access, which doesn't directly address the erosion issue ????


Wow, that's pretty disappointing. You'd like to think they would address the reason for the increased suspended solids and fix that, rather than wreck everybody's fun ...

[trailguy]

Not trying to hi jack your post Jamie, but I must add to this whole water quality issue.Back when they where trying to blame OHV for water quality,the Native Cutthroat Trout was on the threatened species list in Alberta & doing very poor in most of the province,there was one area in Alberta however that it was doing very well - Ghost OHV area!The bafoons falled to mention this info to the public when the study was complete though. I got this info 1st hand from the SRD Fisheries expert in Alberta.

[Hendrix13]

Not trying to hi jack your post Jamie, but I must add to this whole water quality issue.Back when they where trying to blame OHV for water quality,the Native Cutthroat Trout was on the threatened species list in Alberta & doing very poor in most of the province,there was one area in Alberta however that it was doing very well - Ghost OHV area!The bafoons falled to mention this info to the public when the study was complete though. I got this info 1st hand from the SRD Fisheries expert in Alberta.

NP, I appreciate your feedback

It seems that these environmentalists have a pretty good program going. They fund an "independent" study and then lobby the government for changes. New policy has more to do with public opinion then sound science.

But really can you blame them, the politicians have all this public pressure and apparent scientific data and very little information from our perspective.

[Spinalguy]

The enviro nazis will not be happy until NO human is allowed in the backcountry.
They will spin it anyway they see fit to achieve their agenda. The grizzly bear is their crown jewel because in theory, anywhere a Grizzly roams and makes it a corridor means potential 'knee jerk' closures.
The Eastern slopes closure are critical to the enviro nazi's quest.

[Hendrix13]

So what do we do