Alberta must act fast to save grizzlies, groups warn

EDMONTON—If Alberta keeps building roads into remote regions where its few remaining grizzly bears live, the bruins will be on a path to oblivion, conservationists warn in a report released Friday.

“It’s pretty much as simple as that. If we can do a better job of managing access in grizzly bear habitat, then we can manage grizzly bears in Alberta,” Nigel Douglas, conservation specialist with the Alberta Wilderness Association, said in an interview.

The report, titled, “A Grizzly Challenge” and drafted with input from such groups as the Alberta Wilderness Association, the Sierra Club of Canada and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, pegs the number of grizzlies in the province at 760.

But it says that figure could easily triple in years to come if provincial officials merely implement recommendations already presented to them by experts.

Additional excerpt:

In Alberta, the report urges the province to designate and maintain wilderness areas for the bears to roam, and also to reduce road densities in the rest of the habitats to about half a kilometre of length per square kilometre.