A group of University of Calgary researchers are using satellite images and ground surveys to map out Alberta's grizzly bear territory amidst fears that Alberta's development boom are threatening the animal's future in the region.
Four students have undertaken the task to complete a detailed map of the grizzly's current range in Alberta, which has been considerably reduced due to human impact. The results of the survey may help guide future policies on land use and development, which the researchers say may be leading to harmful levels of stress in the bears. Such high levels of stress may result in lower life expectancies and fewer cubs being born.
"We observed that grizzly bears in protected areas have lower stress levels and are healthier than grizzly bears in public lands with lots of activity going on," says University of Calgary geography professor and one of the coordinators of the project Dr. Greg McDermid.
"It's possible that we could start seeing island populations or populations cut off from other populations just because of the way Alberta is growing."
The group will present their final conclusions in 2011 once the study is completed.
Grizzly bears' low reproduction rates and sensitivity to habitat disruptions have made them one of North America's 'at-risk' species. McDermid says that 150 years ago grizzly bears roamed all of northern and western North America, from Alaska to Manitoba and even as far south as Mexico. Today, grizzlies occupy only about half of their historical range. In Alberta, grizzly bears have been classified as a 'maybe at risk' species under the Alberta Wildlife Act, although the province's Endangered Species Coordinating Committee (ESCC), along with numerous conservation groups, have long been recommending the status to be changed to 'threatened' in 2002.
The province has declined to change the status of the bear, but in March of this year it suspended the controversial Spring grizzly bear hunt for three years. The government also released a report at that time showing that the actual number of grizzlies in Alberta is considerably lower than previously believed.
Nigel Douglas, a conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association, says while suspending the hunt is a "good little first step," more needs to be done to address the bears' habitat problem.
"We have got such a long way to go and we haven't seen any willingness yet to address that habitat issue, and without doing that we're not going to recover grizzly bears," says Douglas.
Dr. Scott Nielsen, a grizzly bear ecology researcher at the University of Alberta, says the current densities of grizzly bears are quite low in Alberta when compared to other populations.
"Part of this difference is due to the marginal quality of habitat in parts of the Alberta range," says Nielsen.
Grizzly bears are best adapted to living in open or patchy low-elevation landscapes, he says, but the high areas of rock and ice in the mountain parks and mature even-aged older stands of forests outside of the parks provide a poor habitat for the bears.
It is believed that there were over 6000 grizzly bears roaming across Alberta at one point. Years of human settlement and disruptions to bear habitat have pushed this number down to around 700, according to recent estimates.
"As human-caused mortalities have been increasing in number and extent in Alberta, beyond that which the population can naturally rebound, it has translated into population declines," says Nielsen.
A 2004 report by the government appointed Alberta Grizzly Bear Recovery Team says the main factors affecting the bear population include licensed and illegal hunting and increased human activity in grizzly bear territory, which leads to increased mortality rates among bears.
The team has also made recommendations to recover the bear population, some of which include creating conservation areas and controlling development and other human activities.
John Lear, a spokesperson for the Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, says the report is still being considered and it will be a few years before the government comes up with a complete action plan, as they are still waiting for more accurate population estimates from a DNA census.
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