Alberta Takes First Step to Put Grizzly Bears on the Path to Recovery

Please make a point of sending a short letter or email commending the Honorable David Coutts, Alberta Minister of Sustainable Resource Development for suspending the annual grizzly bear hunt and also releasing the draft recovery plan and the current reports on the grizzly bear numbers. Also encourage him to take the next step of listing the grizzly bears as a threatened species under the Alberta Wildlife Act. Lastly, indicate your hope that his department and the Alberta Government will expeditiously implement an effective recovery plan. Minister’s contact information at the end. Government’s news release here.

Background

Just before noon MST today, Friday, the Minister announced that he is suspending the annual grizzly bear hunt over the next few years while DNA based census data is collected throughout the grizzly bear range in Alberta. He has also released the December 2005 draft recovery plan developed by the multi-stakeholder Grizzly Bear Recovery Team, the external scientific reviews of that plan and the population estimate reports of 2004 and 2005, which were based on DNA census techniques. All now available on the government website.

However, habitat maps and information from models developed by the grizzly bear study program at the federally and provincially funded Foothills Model Forest still remain out of reach to the public. With the exception of published annual reports, a minimum membership of two years costing a total of $30,000 is required in that public-private emtity before access can be gained to that information.

There are only about 700 grizzly bears remaining in Alberta throughout a range of about 154,000 square kilometers (59,460 sq. mi.) compared to an historic population of about 10,000 to 16,000 grizzly bears, including the sub-population now extinct from the prairie and parkland regions of the province.

Contact Information

The Honourable David Coutts
Minister of Sustainable Resource Development
420 Legislature Building
10800 97 Avenue
Edmonton AB T5K 2B6

Fax: (780)415-4818
Email: livingstone [dot] macleod [at] assembly [dot] ab [dot] ca
Phone: 780 415-4815 (Toll free in Alberta by dialing 310-0000 first and then the area code and number.)

Dianne Pachal, Alberta Wilderness Director
Sierra Club of Canada
Phone/Fax 403-234-7368
www.sierraclub.ca/wilderness

Posted March 3, 2006 by russ