The Alberta government has cancelled the spring grizzly bear hunt for the next three years as scientists work to make an improved and accurate estimate of the species’ population in the province.

“While we pursue better grizzly bear population estimates, Alberta will take the most precautionary approach possible with the spring hunt,” said David Coutts, the Minister of Sustainable Resource Development at a media conference last Friday (March 3). Coutts had earlier delayed a decision on continuing the hunt in order to review the latest mortality numbers. This information, as well as the detailed grizzly recovery plan, was released to the public on Friday. Having access to the plans and knowing that the hunt has been stopped, at least for now, comes as a great relief to a local environmental group.

“We hoped it was coming,” said Jill Seaton of the Jasper Environmental Association. The JEA had been one of the more active organizations in the province, filing a Freedom of Information request in order to access population numbers and the recovery plan. “He got a lot of pressure from a lot of people,” Seaton said of Coutts, who mentioned this fact in his comments to the press. He described the grizzly hunt as an “emotional issue” and confirmed that he had received substantial feedback from Albertans and Canadians on the matter.

“We figured that as he was a fairly new minister, he might not have heard everything that people had to say,” Seaton said. “I think he’s made the right decision.”

The spring hunt will not go forward for the next three years, but the overall recovery plan is broken into five-year installments. It includes several aggressive steps to reclaim and set aside habitat for the bears, something that Seaton agrees is essential to their survival.

“This isn’t going to save the grizzly, as such, but it is a step in the right direction,” she said. “What is really going to make a difference is protecting habitat and keeping people out of that habitat.”

The recovery plan includes recommendations to better control and limit human use in grizzly habitat, creating grizzly bear conservation areas in every wildlife unit where bears are present and the establishment of regional grizzly recovery plans that can address local issues as directly as possible.

Seaton said that she and the JEA would have to take some time to review the plan as a whole, but emphasized that a very important element to come was an accurate population count.

“I think in the past they’ve been relying on information from hunters and ranchers, so this DNA study will really help them,” she said.

Seaton believes that it is too early to say if this announcement will mark the beginning of a better era of wildlife management policy in Alberta.

“One hopes so,” she said. “The trouble is that wildlife comes under the portfolio of sustainable resource development and there are a lot of other resources that are considered a  higher priority.”

Moving responsibility to another ministry, such as environment, might make very little difference, she added.

“I don’t know if it would be any different. The problem is how high does wildlife figure in any ministry?”  

Still, Seaton notes that at a federal level, the Minister of the Environment is charged with looking after species at risk, not the Minister of Industry.

“It’s almost a conflict of interest with it being in Sustainable Resource Development,” she said. “I mean, how can you protect bears at the expense of the forest industry or the oil industry?”

The mortality numbers made public by the province reveal that 161 grizzlies died in the last six years from human causes. 85 of these were due to the legal spring hunt, and Seaton said that the decision to cancel it is sending out a good message that the government does care about the fate of grizzly bears.

“Of course it is going to help, and it’s sending out the right message,” she said. “To continue shooting bears when they didn’t know how many were left was definitely the wrong message.”

Minister Coutts was keen to emphasize the positive steps that the government was taking on grizzly bear management.

“We are doing more proactive work than ever before on grizzly bears in Alberta. In the coming year, we’ll be putting more resources into public safety and bringing the BearSmart program into communities,” he said. 

The recovery plan has been reviewed by two Montana-based bear biologists, and their recommendations are up for public review as well. Coutts said that the provincial recovery team will take these suggestions into consideration before forwarding their final recommendations to the minister. 

All of the documents and reports can be viewed online at the Sustainable Resource Development website. Go to www.gov.ab.ca and follow the links.