Bear Management in the Rocky Mountain National Parks

Grizzly Bear Conservation Strategy

Excerpt from the Banff National Park of Canada Management Plan

5.6.2 A Framework for the Conservation of Grizzly Bears

Those responsible for grizzly bear management in the Alberta, British Columbia and national park portions of the Central Rockies Ecosystem (CRE) agree with the goal of maintaining a non-declining grizzly bear population. This will become increasingly more challenging because grizzly bears in the Alberta portion of the CRE, including Banff National Park, live in one of the most developed landscapes in North America where the species still survives. Adding to the challenge is the fact that grizzly bear habitat in the CRE is naturally fragmented by rock and ice. Extensive linear developments such as highways, and railways follow valley bottoms and further fragment and stress bear habitat and populations.

Since 1994, Parks Canada has been very involved with other land managers and organizations in the University of Calgary led East Slopes Grizzly Bear Project (ESGBP). Demographic analysis of data from that study shows reproduction characterized by late age of first reproduction, small litter size, long inter-litter intervals and one of the lowest reproductive rates found for a grizzly bear population in North America. Survival rates for adult females were high, between 95-96%. This is attributed to focused and extensive effort by managers to keep individual females alive despite conflict with human use.

Parks Canada is seeking to be proactive in developing a strategy and actions to avoid a decline in the population. Parks Canada will work collaboratively with adjacent land managers to meet common objectives.

Predictability of human activity helps bears to avoid people. Fewer bear conflicts, human caused mortalities and human injuries occur when human activity is more predictable in terms of location and time. The Human Use Management Strategy is important for managing human activity to enhance the conservation of grizzly bears.

There has been significant research in North America on grizzly bears. This research has led to a number of concepts and analytical tools on how to effectively manage for grizzly bears. These include habitat effectiveness, security areas, core reproductive areas, greenness areas, and resource selection function. This research and understanding of these tools continues to evolve as they are applied. Parks Canada’s approach will be to apply the principles from these tools where appropriate to the Banff National Park context in working towards ensuring a sustainable or viable grizzly bear population.

Secure habitat is where grizzly bears have a low probability of encountering people. In secure habitat, grizzly bears can feed with little human-caused disturbance and maintain their wary behaviour. The CRE has had extensive loss of secure habitat for many decades, including inside Banff National Park. This has primarily been due to fragmentation caused by increased access encouraging widespread human use.

Table 1 on page 44 of the 1997 management plan identifies targets for habitat effectiveness. Parks Canada’s objective is to prevent further decline in habitat effectiveness in all areas of BNP and to increase habitat effectiveness, especially in core reproductive areas.

Three concentrations of female grizzly bears (core reproductive areas) have been identified in BNP - the Pipestone/Baker/Skoki Valley area, the Flints Park area and the Middle Spray Valley area. Human use will be managed more directly in these areas than in other areas of the park. Many of the actions identified in the Human Use Management Strategy (see following sections) are focused on improving habitat security and effectiveness.

Strategic Goal

To maintain a non-declining and viable population of grizzly bears within the regional landscape through collaborative management of human-caused grizzly bear mortality, human land use and landscape conditions. Parks Canada's actions will contribute to the long-term persistence of a healthy population of grizzly bears.

Objectives

• To minimize bear/human interactions that may lead to habituation of bears
• To prevent human-caused displacement of bears from prime food sources
• To minimize the risk of human-caused mortality and human injury inflicted by bears
• To demonstrate leadership and work collaboratively with managers of lands within the CRE, for the ongoing protection of grizzly bears and a functional ecosystem.

Key Actions

1. Emphasize decreasing human caused mortality of adult and sub-adult females, as well as providing for their security, in order to improve cub survival and recruitment, reproductive capacity and ensure wary offspring.
2. Continue to strive to meet the objective (see Section 3.11) of reducing the number of grizzly bears killed as a result of human activity to less than 1% of the population annually. Other indicators are provided in section 5.6.3, Key Action #26.
3. Reduce the frequency of human-grizzly bear interaction, thus reducing the potential of habituation and the probability of human-caused grizzly bear death or human injury.
4. Management strategies will be applied to the three concentrations of female bears with the overall goal being a net contribution of wary bears. Actions will lead to: improved habitat quality, maximizing access to habitat, improved security, minimizing human disturbance events, and enhancing the ability of wildlife to move through the area.
5. Prevent further decline in habitat effectiveness and strive to improve effectiveness, concentrating on the core areas for females. This includes habitat restoration and managing impacts of human use.
6. Improve the security of home ranges, allowing bears to feed in the relative absence of humans to promote the wary behaviour considered desirable.
7. Continue to work with adjacent land managers to maintain, and if possible improve, the connectivity of the grizzly bear population to adjacent populations by maintaining a secure, accessible landscape with high quality dispersal linkages.
8. As part of highway upgrading, introduce mitigations to enhance wildlife movement and reduce mortality.
9. Support public education and interpretive programs to increase the understanding of park visitors with respect to the impact of their behaviour on grizzly bears.
10. Continue to work with other agencies to monitor the grizzly bear population. Develop a long-term monitoring strategy to ensure that actions are taken to maintain the long-term viability of this species.
11. Implement changes outlined in the Human Use Management Strategy to improve security, habitat effectiveness and the survival rate for grizzly bears.