Image:Excerpt from Alberta Government map showing Castle Special Place source:http://www.castlespecialplace.ca/map.html
According to an article entitled, "Castle’s special place no longer secure for grizzly bears", which appeared in the Naton News on Wednesday, March 16,2011, The Government of Alberta has been found to have been negligent in managing the habitat of the province's Grizzly Bear population! As stated in the article,
"A new satellite study in the biologically rich public lands of the Castle Special Management Area in the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Alberta found more than 1,200 kilometres (km) of roads and trails."
How can the Grizzly bears in this area be expected to have a decent chance of surviving when so much human activity is found within this area? In this article which you can read by clicking on the following link:
http://www.nantonnews.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3026439 it is stated:
"The Crown of the Continent is one of only two linkages within the Yellowstone to Yukon region through which grizzly bear populations in Canada and those in the U.S. remain connected to each other.
Using high resolution satellite imagery and field survey, the study examined the extent of roads and trails within the Castle Special Management Area and analyzed these disturbances in terms of their use by motorized vehicles and their potential impact on grizzly bear habitat security areas.
Our study found that the total length of roads and trails that are potentially used by off-highway vehicles within the Castle is 1,283 km.
This overall density for the Castle wildland area is more than double, and in some watersheds more than triple, the threshold of 0.6 km/km2 within important grizzly bear areas, as recommended in the Alberta Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan."
"In addition, this study identified the existence of trails used by OHVs that are not shown on maps published by the Alberta government."
"Of the area field surveyed, the study found that there were about twice as many roads and trails being used by OHVs than were authorized by the Alberta government."
Additional disturbances will occur following Alberta government-approved commercial logging, which will entail new roads.
The report concludes that the Castle Special Management Area is no longer secure for grizzly bears and that sustainable environmental management of the Castle wilderness is not occurring.
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Shame on the Government of Alberta for allowing this to happen to the habitat of the Grizzly Bears in this province! Why is the Government going to future decrease the area which Grizzly Bears have to live in this province by approving commercial logging in these areas which were designated for Grizzly Bear Habitat?
If you care about the future of Grizzly bears on the planet, please tell this to the Premier of the Province of Alberta, Ed Stelmach by clicking on the following link:
http://premier.alberta.ca/contact/contact.cfm
