2011-11-30 AWA Wilderness & Wildlife Defenders: Too many roads in Alberta Grizzly Habitat

This past September, Alberta Wilderness Association, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), and the Sierra Club urged the Alberta Government to end new road construction in bear habitat until the amount of roads are at or below the amount identified in the provincial Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan. These actions are recommended in the Plan, yet more than three years after the government adopted the plan, none of these actions have been taken, and the plight of bears on the ground has grown worse.

The vast network of industrial roads and trails on Alberta’s public lands bring far too many such people into contact with grizzlies. Bears die when hunters or others with guns accidentally or purposefully kill them, and research continues to link increased bear mortality with increased linear disturbance density in bear habitat.