24 October 2010

Bridging the Killing Field in Banff

Wildlife crossing structures over the Trans-Canada Highway through Banff are heavily used by animals, and even grizzlies have been spotted using them in broad daylight.

Banff Alberta - This summer, more than 20 motion-activated cameras were set up throughout Banff National Park as part of a long-term wildlife population monitoring project.
 
Strapped to trees and hidden in rocks along hiking and game trails, the cameras have captured intriguing and sometimes comical images of elusive species like grizzlies, wolves, cougars, goats, and wolverines. Researchers will analyze the images for "occupancy modelling" that will help shape management decisions on trail use, species re-introduction, and the timing and location of prescribed fires.
 
Park officials have also found another use for the photos, they are posting the images on the Banff website to prove to visitors that wild animals really do exist in Banff. The national park has done such an effective job of reducing human-wildlife conflicts that visitors are becoming disappointed at what they perceive as a wildlife-sterile environment.
 
"We want people to actually see that we do have wildlife out there and that they are acting as we want them to," says Michelle Macullo, a park spokesperson. "It's like our family photo album, except that we're showing off pictures of animals instead of showing pictures of the kids."
 
The images are updated on a "wild images gallery" on the Banff park website. One shows a grizzly standing and scratching its back on a tree.
 
While tourists may be disappointed, the Banff model is increasingly being looked at by park and wildlife managers all over the world. With the exception of wildlife mortality on railroad tracks, Banff's success in reducing human-wildlife conflict stems from an intense and often controversial 15-year strategy that has costs hundreds of millions of dollars in highway upgrades and wildlife crossings.
 
Wildlife mitigation measures began in the mid-1990s by aggressively managing the local elk population and reducing human activity around the periphery of the Banff townsite to establish wildlife corridors and restore predator-prey relationships. Public education was a key component and remains an ongoing struggle.
 
"People are more difficult to manage than the wildlife," says Steve Michel, Banff National Park's human-wildlife conflict specialist.
 
Last week, a Banff resident was fined $250 for feeding deer in his yard. Park officials say ungulates that become habituated to town life attract predators such as cougars and wolves, posing a danger to humans. A Japanese tour bus operator was also fined $750 for repeatedly driving too close to an elk so his clients could take photographs.
 
Animal protection is also at the root of an impending decision that will likely lead to the controversial demolition of a historic home in Banff. The boarded-up cottage, a designated federal heritage building, was built by A.O. Wheeler, a founder of the Alpine Club of Canada, in 1920. Efforts to preserve it appear destined to fail because of its location in a wildlife corridor now closed to human activity.
 
But by far the most visible measures, and attracting considerable international attention, are the costly wildlife crossing structures over and under the Trans-Canada Highway, as well as the fencing that has been done along the entire highway through the park.
 
"It was a killing field," Michel says of the highway. It is travelled by millions of vehicles per year, with traffic increasing at the rate of five to eight percent annually.
 
Michel was originally wary of fencing the Trans-Canada, which he knew would isolate species in genetic "islands" that could ultimately cause their demise. He was also skeptical that animals would use the expensive wildlife crossing structures planned for the highway.
 
Two wildlife overpasses were completed in 1996 at a cost of $1.5 million each in a 30-kilometre highway upgrade from Banff to Castle Junction. Also built were 22 wildlife underpasses.
 
Researchers were stunned by the effectiveness of the structures. Grizzlies were wandering across in broad daylight. Wary wolves and cougars also took to the crossings with ease, following herds of elk and deer.
 
"The crossings exceeded the expectations of even their most ardent supporters," says Michel. "They have set a global precedent."
 
Banff's wildlife crossings were recently called "the holy grail" of road design in a U.S. magazine article about a section of Colorado highway that has been dubbed a Berlin Wall for wildlife.
 
The Banff experiment was also cited in a recent Nature magazine article written by 24 wildlife experts opposed to a proposed 53-kilometre long highway in Tanzania across the northern Serengeti. The authors said the cost of Banff-like structures would be prohibitive in Africa and could never accommodate the huge migrating herds of Serengeti animals, such as the wildebeest.
 
The final 35 kilometres of the Banff highway upgrade, from Castle Junction to the B.C. border, will be open to four-lane traffic in 2012, with work on wildlife crossings continuing until 2014.
 
In the 25-kilometre distance from Castle Junction to Lake Louise, scheduled for completion this fall, there will be wildlife crossings every 1.5 kilometres including four, 60-metre-wide overpasses at a cost of $5.5 million each, three 40-metre wide underpasses, two 25-metre wide underpasses, as well as smaller culverts every 400 metres for small animals and three especially designed for fish.
 
The wildlife mitigation measures, including fencing, account for nearly one-third of the $310-million cost of the highway project from Castle Junction to the B.C. border, Michel said.
 
While protecting animals along the highway has been a costly success, the railway is another story. The Canadian Pacific Railway line through the park is Banff's version of an oil sands tailings pond. Conservation groups regularly blow the whistle when a bear, particularly a grizzly, is killed on the tracks.
 
The railway recently announced a $1-million research project aimed at reducing wildlife mortality through the park. The company said fencing and crossing structures may be part of a broader solution. It is also nearing the end of a $20 million program to repair leaking grain cars to reduce spilled grain that attracts wildlife to the train tracks.
 
"CP is the biggest source of grizzly deaths in Banff. That's not good news, but it's good that they are admitting their responsibility and owning up to it," says Nigel Douglas, head of the Alberta Wilderness Association.
 
The bigger issue, he says, is that little is being done to reduce grizzly mortality outside the mountain parks.
 
"If you look at managing human-wildlife interaction on provincial lands, it's a disaster," Douglas says. Seismic lines and roads from resource development, providing all-terrain motorized access to remote areas, is a major problem.
 
"It has been clear for a lot of years that putting motorized access with grizzly bears is killing grizzly bears. The province recognizes this in its grizzly bear recovery strategy but it is taking no action."
 
An online survey by the Alberta Conservation Association, a hunters' organization, has about 70 percent of respondents saying they are willing to restrict their access to grizzly bear habitat to assist in the recovery of the species.
 
Jeff Gailus, an Alberta conservationist and author of The Grizzly Manifesto, says garbage management in communities in bear habitat is another big issue.
 
"Outside the mountain parks, Canmore is a gleaming example" of proper solid waste management, Gailus said. Residents must deposit garbage in bear-proof bins in every neighbourhood, bird feeders are discouraged, and even composting is banned.
 
"Canmore made some hard decisions because solid waste management is not cheap," says Gailus. "Managing waste in bear communities is important not only for bear survival, but for public safety."
 
Grizzlies were officially listed by the Alberta government this year as a threatened species. The designation came after a DNA-based population survey begun in 2004 that took nearly five years to complete, at a cost of $2.4 million. The study estimated the total number of grizzlies in Alberta, excluding those in Banff and Jasper National Parks, at 691 bears.
 
Of those, about 360 grizzlies are of reproductive age, which experts say is unsustainable. According to the government's data, out of 21 known grizzly deaths in 2009, 17 were a result of human actions. Since 2000, there have been 221 human-caused grizzly mortalities in the province.
 
Meanwhile, in Banff, the remote cameras keep providing images that have park staff excited. The cameras have captured one grizzly, designated as Bear 64, using the highway crossing structures regularly.
 
"She's a good mom who has raised cubs and it's nice to see her and have an idea of what she's doing and where she's at," says Macullo. The cameras, she notes, are easy to maintain and are far less invasive than tranquilizing animals and fitting them with radio collars.
 
"I don't think we'll ever get away totally from collars, but we like to see them carry on without the jewelry."
 
Robert Remington.