The news that Gordon Stenhouse has been reassigned, rebuffed or otherwise reprimanded in some form by the provincial government is cause for serious concern. Although no official word has come from Stenhouse or any officials in Alberta’s ministry of sustainable resources, the timeline of Stenhouse’s removal as the chief grizzly bear scientist speaks for itself. He made public statements critical of the government’s unwillingness to provide recent data and analysis of grizzly populations in the province. Barely one week later, he’s been removed from his job.

What sort of a government do we have exactly? When this newspaper interviewed Jill Seaton for for a story dealing with the Jasper Environmental Association’s concerns about the release of the information, she said that the province of Alberta was “arrogant” when it came to dealing with wildlife management. Indeed.

It is nothing more than arrogance, or utter foolishness, that would convince the very officials we rely on to protect our environment to decide that dissent and complaint should be punished, rather than rewarded.

Gordon Stenhouse, as a prominently experienced and well-respected biologist, should have been expected to raise his voice in concern if he legitimately felt that the government should have released its population data. He did, and he was silenced for doing so. Certainly, Stenhouse can continue to question the government from the sidelines, just as the JEA and many other conservation groups are doing, but the fact that he is no longer in an advisory role to our government is troubling.

Provincial officials do not know everything about the departments they are working for. Indeed, it could be argued that in some situations and circumstances, government officials know very little indeed. That is where people like Gordon Stenhouse come in. Experts are essential in the process of determining policy, such as the Grizzly Recovery Plan (which has not been released). They are the ones with the experience in the field, the scientific background to evaluate the likely impact of proposed measures, and the contacts with the various federal, local and provincial authorities who work, in this case, to protect the grizzly bear.

Now, because he told his bosses something they didn’t want to hear, they don’t want to hear anything more from him at all. This benefits no one. Advisors that do nothing more than agree with the government are poor advisors indeed.

There is an established pattern here, when it comes to the Klein government. In 2002, Dr. David Swann was removed as the chief medical officer of health for the Palliser Health Region in Southern Alberta after he spoke out in favour of the Kyoto Accord, an international agreement signed by the Canadian government that is anathema to our current provincial administration.

After much public outrage, Swann was offered his job back. Fantastically, he declined, using his enhanced profile to work in other areas until the fall of 2004, when he struck a significant blow against his tormentors by capturing a seat in the provincial legislature, running for the Liberal Party of Alberta.

Stenhouse is not like Swann, who can legitimately claim to be doing good work for Albertans as a sitting MLA. A scientist like Gordon Stenhouse can do the most for us as Albertans by continuing his grizzly research, and by having the ear of provincial planners and bureaucrats who are making the crucial decisions about the future of our threatened species. He must be reinstated.

Hopefully, this debacle will lead to increased public pressure on the province as they consider continuing the spring grizzly bear hunt in 2006. Notwithstanding the recently collected (and apparently top secret) population information, the hunt is not a justifiable part of the approach to grizzly recovery in the province.

The Grizzly Recovery Team, including Stenhouse and Parks Canada representatives, has already recommend it be discontinued. So too has the Endangered Species Conservation Committee. These are two of the most significant advisory bodies the province can consult on these matters. 

Sustainable Resource Development claims that there are good reasons for continuing to allow a select number of bears to be killed every spring. They attempt to sanitize the shooting of these animals by calling it harvesting, as if they were a field of wheat or a crop of oats, but the fact is that the bears are shot dead. The province claims to be trying to minimize the impact of the hunt on female grizzlies, but how these measures actually work in the field is another matter. There is evidence that hunters have used baited live traps, set up for research purposes by well intentioned scientists, to hunt bears. How can these abuses go unchecked?

How can the province use tradition as justification for continuing the bear hunt? Yes, people have hunted bears and other megafauna for generations, but simply because something has been done in a certain way does not mean that there is value in continuing that practice.

A recovery plan for an entire province suggests that a multi-faceted approach should be developed. The government, we hope, has such a nuanced strategy prepared and will release it soon. It is hard to understand why the elimination of the legal killing of grizzly bears might not be part of the package. Stopping the hunt would not guarantee that no bears would be shot, but it would at least end the embarrasing practice of government sanctioned elimination.