Better protection for grizzlies urged

Number of roads, trails in habitat needs to be reduced to curtail deaths: group

The Alberta Wilderness Association says limits are needed on motorized access into grizzly habitat, after 224 of the bears died between 2008 and 2017.

Joanna Skrajny, conversation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association, said three of the past five years have seen spikes in the number of grizzly deaths in the province.

“They’ve really been largely due to road kills and high poaching figures, so, to me, that suggests that we need to be doing better in order to reduce the number of deaths,” she said.

All but 17 of those deaths were human-caused, she noted.

One of the measures Skrajny said the association wants to see is a reduction in the number of roads and trails in grizzly habitat.

“The 2008 grizzly recovery plan showed that there is a scientific number that grizzly bears need in order to recover, and that is just the amount of roads that grizzly bears can sustain and we haven’t implemented that,” she said.

For example, she said, in the public lands in the Livingstone Porcupine area, there are more than 4,000 kilometres of industrial roads, seismic lines, pipelines and off-highway vehicle trails.

Skrajny said increased enforcement and more wildlife corridors could also help protect grizzlies.

She added the numbers released by the province are only “the known mortalities.”

“Researchers . . . estimate that the true number is probably up to twice as high as the estimated number,” she said.