Alberta's threatened grizzly bears need two things to survive over the long term: a positive population growth rate and plenty of room to roam.

Stable Population Levels

Whether you're talking about bears or people, a population is healthy when there are enough individuals to provide gentic diversity and stability (for Alberta's grizzly bears that means at least 1000 mature breeding individuals), and when births exceed deaths over the long term (for grizzly bears this means 500+ years).

According to recent provincial government report, there are approximately 500 grizzly bears on provincially managed lands in Alberta. The latest scientific research suggests this means there are approximately 250 "mature breeding individuals," which is far below the minimum number (1000) needed to maintain a stable, healthy population, as recommended by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) in its IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria.

This is why Alberta's Endangered Species Conservation Committee recommended that the Alberta grizzly bear be listed as a threatened species, so that adequate protections are put in place to ensure its long-term survival.

Nowhere in Alberta is the grizzly bear in more trouble that in the Banff-Bow Valley. Research by the Eastern Slopes Grizzly Bear Project (ESGBP) suggests that the reproductive rate of the Banff-Bow Valley grizzly bear population is the lowest in all of North America. This means that in order to persist over time, the mortality rate must be even lower.

Most Bow Valley grizzly bears do not die of natural causes. In fact, only three grizzly bears are known to have died of natural causes in the Bow Valley Watershed since 1993. The main causes of death between 1993 and 2001 include: human-bear conflicts (18), hunting related (12), and highways and railways (6). The resulting human-caused mortality rate far exceeds the allowable rate estimated by the best available science.

As a result, much of our work focuses on how to reduce human-caused grizzly bear mortality in the Banff-Bow Valley. Experts at the ESGBP have determined that the annual allowable rate of human-caused grizzly bear mortality is less than two percent of the estimated population. No more than half of those deaths can be of female grizzlies.

What does this mean? Well, if the Bow Valley watershed has an estimated grizzly bear population of 100 bears (which is a very conservative estimate), then the population can sustain the death or removal of only two grizzly bears each year, only one of which can be a female.

Unfortunately, the numbers are much higher than these science-based targets. Between 1971 and 1998, 107 grizzly bears have been killed in or removed from Banff National Park. Forty-three grizzlies were killed in or removed from the Bow Valley Watershed (much of which is in Banff National Park) between 1994 and June 2002. In the last two years alone, nine of Banff's grizzly bears (more than 10 percent of the population) were killed or removed from the Banff population, a rate many times higher than Banff's own management plan target.

BVGBA is committed to reducing the number of bears killed each year by cars, trains, hunters, and the increasing amount of recreational activity in grizzly bear habitat. To learn how, visit our Action Centre and Programs section.

Room to Roam

Grizzly bears require large tracts of land to find enough food, mates, and denning sites to survive. History has shown us that when grizzly bear populations are limited to small (less than 20,000 square kilometres) islands of habitat, they eventually disappear. Why? Increasing human use increases mortality levels and habitat is destroyed by activities like fire, disease and industrial development, increasing the potential for disease to wipe out the entire population. This is essentially what happened in 90 per cent of the North American grizzly bear's historic range.

If we want to ensure the long term persistence of grizzly bears in the southern Canadian Rockies, we need to manage the landscape in a more grizzly friendly way. In some cases this means protecting critical grizzly bear habitat as national or provincial parks, in others it means management regimes that allow people and grizzlies to co-exist.

The first steps are to list the Alberta grizzly bear as a threatened species and to implement a grizzly bear conservation strategy for Banff National Park.

To find out more about how BVGBA helps reach these goals, visit our Action Centre and Programs section.

For more information on other initiatives aimed at protecting important grizzly bear habitat go to WildCanada.net.

For more information on initiatives aimed at managing working landscapes in a grizzly friendly way, click on: Southern Alberta Land Trust and The Nature Conservancy of Canada.