22 August 2005
When does the Human Footprint Grow too Big?
Banff - News that a train slammed into a grizzly bear that held celebrity status in
Banff National Park and left three cubs orphaned has renewed calls for a comprehensive strategy to curb the growing number of
human-caused deaths in a place that is meant to be a haven for wildlife.
Jim Pissot, executive director of Defenders of Wildlife Canada, rattles off the recent death toll like he is talking about lost
friends.
Last summer, bear No. 36 was killed by a vehicle along the Trans-Canada Highway in the park. In May, a cub of grizzly
No. 72 was cut down by a train along the Canadian Pacific Railway line between the Banff town site and Lake Louise. In June,
bear No. 99 was shot after it mauled a jogger to death in Canmore, just east of the park gates.
And on Friday, a grizzly known as bear No. 66 was struck along the CPR line between Banff and Lake Louise.
Bear No. 66, a 10-year-old sow that once wowed tourists by taking a stroll down one of Banff's main streets, was
with its three young cubs and likely feeding on berries along the track when it was hit, park officials said.
The cubs, which are less than a year old, were not injured, but park officials and environmentalists do not expect them to
survive the winter without their mother.
"It's not 66," Mr. Pissot said, "it's 66 and three cute little cubs that are the walking dead."
Parks Canada chooses to let nature take its course with the cubs instead of nursing them through the winter only to have them
become dependent on humans.
"It is a disaster... at least for this short term. We'll see how well we can pull out of it," Mr. Pissot said, calling
for a new long-term conservation plan.
There are an estimated 55 to 70 bears in the Banff park, and there is much debate about how many there are in the province.
Some estimates suggest between 500 and 1,000 bears provincewide, and maybe half of the entire population are breeding adults.
Grizzlies have been killed by other animals or for unexplained reasons, but humans have caused most of the bear deaths recorded
in the highly developed wilderness corridor between Banff and Calgary from 1971 to 1996 - 627 of 639, according to data compiled
by the Eastern Slopes Grizzly Bear Project.
Jillian Roulet, superintendent for Banff National Park, said the loss of bear No. 66 is particularly significant since the animal
could have produced one or two more litters, which would have helped stabilize the grizzly population of the area.
"Because the population is so small here, a loss of one reproductive female is a big impact," Ms. Roulet said.
Yet, for a wide-roaming animal that doesn't know boundaries between protected parks and land that is fair game for
hunters, the grizzly's future has long been caught up in politics.
Alberta's Endangered Species Conservation Committee has called for the animals to be declared "threatened," which would
effectively kill the hunt.
However, the Klein government has maintained the animal's status as "may be at risk" and has moved only to decrease the
number of hunting licences available.
Parks Canada, which already has a bear-management plan, aims to keep bears wild by educating people about proper
garbage disposal and cleaner camping as well as by closing hiking trails that bears frequent and decreasing speed limits in the
parks.
Parks Canada has also worked with CPR to end grain spillage on the tracks, which is a key reason bears are attracted to the rails.
CPR now has a vacuum truck that patrols the tracks for grain, orders more careful handling of grain at the terminals and has
erected fencing in wildlife hot spots.
In addition, the trains use whistles and lights to scare animals away from danger, spokesman Ed Greenberg said.
"We feel we do everything we can as a company to avoid the tragic situation with bears," he said. "At the end of
the day, this is a community bear-management situation.
"The railway's footprint has not changed in 120 years, but the communities have grown dramatically around us."
Bear No. 66 was noted for being comfortable around people. It would hang around popular hiking trails. It had also hunted elk
calves in the town of Banff.
In June, it nipped at a sleeping bag and bit the backside of the occupant who was illegally camping on the outskirts of town.
The teenaged camper was not seriously injured.
Although park wardens considered the bear docile, they spent countless hours trying to deter it from getting too close to people
and would close off human access to give its brood space.
Now, both sadness and frustration plague park officials, Ms. Roulet said. Although collisions with CPR are responsible for four
grizzly deaths in the park since 2000, Ms. Roulet said she plans to talk with the company again about further reducing the death
rate.
In the meantime, officials are keeping their fingers crossed for the cubs of bear No. 66. There's still hope. "In 2001, two
cubs that were orphaned made it through winter," Ms. Roulet said.
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