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Alberta’s fewer-than-500 bears fight for survival
In 2002 the Alberta government estimated there were 1000 grizzly bears in the province. Six years later that number has plummeted to below 500 — a number local conservationists say is perilously low.
“If we don’t turn around what we’re doing in grizzly bear habitat soon… they are going to disappear from Alberta” says Nigel Douglas a conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association. “The decisions that are being made are certainly working against grizzly bears.”
University of Alberta biological scientist Mark Boyce says that until recently grizzly management in Alberta was based on “flawed information” that gave inflated estimates of the province’s grizzly population. However in 2004 the province started using DNA surveying to map grizzly populations — and the resulting numbers which are more accurate told another story. “As we got even more data it’s been looking worse and worse” says Boyce. “There are probably half as many [grizzly] bears as we thought there were in Alberta.”
Conservationists and grizzly experts agree that the main problem facing Alberta grizzlies is industrial development in the bears’ habitat particularly logging and oil and gas drilling. Most grizzly deaths are caused by humans and most of these deaths occur within 500 metres of a road according to the Alberta government’s 2004 draft grizzly bear recovery plan. “We have eroded the snot out of the [eastern] slopes with roads for forestry and roads for oil and gas development and it means that the human access is very high” says Boyce who was on the recovery plan team. “Human access and grizzly bears don’t seem to mix very well.” (In national parks 100 per cent of human-caused deaths were within 200 metres of a road according to the draft.)
Douglas says the Alberta government has done too little to curb these habitat disturbances. “[Grizzlies] are incredibly sensitive to disturbance and without addressing the issue of habitat anything else is a waste of time” says Douglas. “We’ve certainly known since the plan in 2004 — and we’ve known it way before then — that we need to do something and we need to do it urgently. And we still haven’t done anything yet. That’s the frustrating thing.”
In 2002 Alberta’s Endangered Species Conservation Committee recommended that the grizzly bear be designated as “threatened.” However the Conservative government refused the recommendation. Six years later the bear still isn’t listed as threatened even though new research shows there are fewer grizzlies than previously thought. “We don’t have a government that’s terribly responsive and that’s the crisis” says Jim Pissot executive director of Defenders of Wildlife Canada. “The bear may be a symbol of a much larger governance issue that really does need attention.”
Although the government refused to list the grizzly as threatened Alberta Sustainable Resources Development (SRD) — the government department responsible for grizzly bear recovery — appointed a grizzly recovery team that produced the 2004 draft. The team came up with a long list of recommendations including restricting human activities in bear habitat and temporarily suspending grizzly hunting. (The government suspended the hunt in spring 2006 — a “blindingly obvious” decision that should have been made years earlier says Douglas.)
The draft plan was completed in 2004 but it would be three years until the SRD ministry accepted the plan in October 2007. “During those three years all of the activities that threaten bears were continuing” says Pissot. “This government doesn’t even have the good sense of the medical profession where the first command is do no further harm.” (The final version of the plan still hasn’t been released; SRD spokesperson Dave Ealey says he’s “hopeful it can be done reasonably soon…. I think there are some final things [we’re] working on.”)
When SRD minister Ted Morton accepted the draft plan he rejected several of its recommendations including the creation of “multi-stakeholder regional implementation teams.” “He was smack on” says Boyce explaining it was a struggle for the team to come up with recommendations everyone could agree on. “He should have rejected some of them.” (The team included government and industry reps as well as conservationists and university researchers.)
In October Morton made it clear that the plan’s acceptance “does not automatically translate into enhanced budgets.” Pissot says that’s not good enough. “[Morton’s] acceptance of the recovery plan didn’t make one iota of difference for grizzly bears on the ground” says Pissot. “[The provincial government] is talking about spending money every 20 minutes…. If this recovery plan is important why didn’t minister Morton announce some money with it?”
However there are clear signs of change in the government’s approach to land use in bear habitat. Morton has said several times this month that the new land-use framework SRD is developing will put more restrictions on industrial development on Crown land. That’s what conservationists have been recommending for years and it’s the main recommendation of the grizzly recovery plan. Boyce says SRD is moving in the right direction. “Now that they’re doing something about [the plan] we’re off and running” Boyce says. “I’m very pleased with Morton’s response.”
