A Bow Valley conservationist group is putting pressure on the provincial government to accept the recommendations from a committee reviewing the legal designation of the grizzly bear in Alberta.
If the province changes the grizzly bear’s designation from "may be at risk" to "threatened" the province will have to take on a recovery plan to save grizzly bear habitat.
Bow Valley Grizzly Bear Alliance’s co-ordinator Jeff Gailus says scientific evidence exists supporting the need to protect grizzly bear populations.
"It’s stable at best and decreasing on the long term. The population will likely disappear by the end of the next century," Gailus said.
The province estimates the population of grizzly bears on provincial land stands at 841 and 175 reside in Banff and Jasper.
The alliance was founded last fall after a few grizzly bears died from human-related causes.
"We’ve go to learn how to support the economy and at the same time allow critters to survive," Gailus said.
Grizzly-friendly oil and gas industries are possible, he said.
The province’s legal designations will affect habitat outside of the national parks but will affect the habitat of bears who travel in and out of the park. Male grizzly bears in the eastern slopes have home ranges of 100,000 square kilometres, approximately the size of the footprint of the city of Calgary, Gailus said.
Grizzly bears in these areas have large home ranges because of their habitats have low densities of food and bears must travel large distances to survive.
The group is also encouraging Parks Canada to put together conservation strategies for grizzly bear habitat when they review the Banff National Park management plan this year.
Gailus argues conservation strategies can be put in place without compromising local economies.
"Yellowstone National Park is a world famous tourist destination with an effective grizzly bear conservation strategy," Gailus said.
Every five years the legal designations of wild animals are reviewed by the endangered species conservation committee, made up of representatives from industry, environmental organizations, academic institutions and land use experts, lead by Ivan Strang, the MLA for West-Yellowhead.
Grizzly bears are currently designated as game animals, this year 17 bears outside the parks are expected to be harvested, said Dave Ealey, a spokesperson for Sustainable Resource.
The committee will bring forward recommendations to the minister of Sustainable Resource Mike Cardinal in a month.
If a recovery plan is called for, the plan would take a year to put together, Ealey said.
The committee will review scientific information provided including a report from the Eastern Slopes Grizzly Bear Project released last year.
"The eastern slopes grizzly bear population appears delicately balanced between decrease and increase. The population could easily slip into decline because it has low density, a very low reproductive rate, significant potential for man-caused moralities and removals, and numerous habitat stresses," states a summary of the report of the status of the eastern slopes grizzly bear project.
Jason Hayes, a Fraser Institute research analyst says grizzly bear researchers in the province have inaccurate population models because they are based on assumptions.
One model judging the effectiveness of habitat does not differentiate human use comparing hikers and hunters. Hikers are considered as dangerous as hunters, Hayes said.
Another assumption is on the analysis of the viability of habitat. The analysis is run on a model that assumes a four percent growth in human use, an increase of four per cent in bear mortality and an increase of 4 per cent in population growth in the area, he said.
"You don’t have to be a wildlife conservation biologist to know it’s pretty speculative," Hayes said.
The population of southern Alberta has increased by 2 per cent. Parks Canada saw a decrease in 1 per cent of human use in the backcountry last year and Alberta government biologists claim a growth of grizzly bear population of 3 to 4 per cent in population outside the national parks, Hayes said.
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