Current Projects
Last Review/Updated: October 17, 2007
Northern East Slopes Regional Carnivore Management Group
The Northern East Slopes Environmental Resource Committee (ERC) established a Regional Carnivore Management Group (RCMG) to ensure implementation of Grizzly Bear Conservation in the Alberta Yellowhead Ecosystem — A Strategic Framework over the next five years. The RCMG included representatives from Alberta Environment, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, Jasper National Park, the forest industry and the oil, gas and mineral industry.
Eastern Slopes Grizzly Bear (ESGB)
This project, begun in 1994, gathers information about the impacts of human development on grizzlies in Kananaskis Country and lower Banff National Park. The area has tremendous tourist potential and development proposals have been common. Mortalities, especially in the park, have been high. Long-term research was designed by federal and provincial governments, university, oil/gas, logging and livestock industries, and conservation organizations with leadership in the Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary. During 1994-1996, 38 of 41 individual grizzlies captured were fitted with radio transmitters. By the end of the 1996 field season, over 3700 telemetry points were known. Special efforts are directed to determine grizzly use of specific habitats and how these areas are linked.
DNA
DNA can be extracted from tissues, blood, hair roots and, following work pioneered in Alberta, even from bear scats. Using DNA, individual bears can be identified. In this way, the origin, relatedness and genetic diversity of animals, as well as the numbers of individuals and the health of the population, can be assessed. Researchers at the University of Alberta have developed a preliminary bear DNA database and ESGB researchers are using DNA to estimate populations and evaluate landscape fragmentation.
Translocation of Grizzly Bears
More than 100 problem grizzlies were captured and moved to more remote locations in Alberta from 1988 to 1995. Since 1994, several translocated grizzlies have been radioed and monitored to provide improved information on transplant success, fidelity to release areas, behavior and movements. Preliminary results show major moves by some bears, including their returns to capture areas over great distances. A mature adult male released near Rainbow Lake in northwestern Alberta was taken one year later in western British Columbia not far from the Pacific coast. Over time, accumulating data will provide a wealth of information on translocation effectiveness.
Cumulative Effects Analysis (CEA)
CEA is designed to assess the total impact on a system from a succession of human activities over extended time periods. It is important to know whether the impact exceeds a threshold where it begins to affect the population of a given species or complex of species. Based on a model of CEA developed for grizzly bears in the USA, Mike Gibeau of Parks Canada concluded that Yoho, Kootenay and Banff national parks have been significantly affected by human activities.
"When a grizzly moves, its silver-tipped fur shimmers and changes color, as if arcs of power were rippling off it. This is the one the Blackfoot Indians called Real Bear—omnivorous, dexterous, highly adaptable, highly intelligent, huge, aggressive, smashingly strong, capable of sprinting at a deer like 35 miles an hour and living as long as 30 years, and once co-dominant with man across the western half of North America."
—Douglas Chadwick, Grizz—of men and the great bear
