Local and provinicial environmental groups are concerned that the Alberta government is denying them access to information that could help determine whether or not the province’s spring grizzly hunt goes ahead this year and in the future.

The Grizzly Bear Alliance, Defenders of Wildlife Canada, the Alberta Wilderness Association and the Jasper Environmental Association complain that repeated requests to view population data have been denied by Sustainable Resource Development (SRD).

True, the government acknowledges, but it’s for a good reason.

“We’re quite insistent on not releasing information until were sure that the reports have been carefully reviewed,” said SRD spokesperson Dave Ealey. “Right now everything is going through a peer-review process.”

Not only is population data not being released, but environmentalists take issue with the fact that the draft Grizzly Recovery Plan, a document that has been in the works for several years, is not available to the public. Both the JEA and the Grizzly Bear Alliance have attempted to access the information via a Freedom of Information request, but have been denied.

Another key piece of information the province has not released is the overall grizzly mortality numbers for 2005, information that had been accessible in the past.

The bottom line, according to the concerned groups, is that the population data the province has recently collected is likely to reveal a smaller number of grizzlies in Alberta. If the population numbers were good, or improving, they suggest that the information would have been released very quickly.

“It would have been all over the papers,” said Jill Seaton of the JEA.

For Seaton, the pressing concern surrounding the information and the recovery plan is the decision the province must make by the end of this month about the 2006 spring bear hunt. A controlled lottery process has been awarding a set number of licences in various wildlife management units around Alberta every spring. In 2005, 73 entrants were awarded licences, which led to ten bears being “harvested” across the province. This included three in the management unit that borders Jasper National Park to the east, according to Seaton, and of the three killed, two of the grizzlies were female.

The hunt is purportedly managed so as to reduce the impact on breeding females and prevent them from being killed, but Seaton has her doubts about the effectiveness of any measures being taken.

“If there are hunters who can’t tell the difference between a male and female, that’s a problem,” she said. Seaton believes the government is “arrogant” when it comes to wildlife management and derides the justifications for the hunt offered by SRD. These include the concept that hunting reduces the number of possible problem bears, or that research and understanding is furthered by the killing of several bears each year. 

“The justifications are really quite pathetic,” Seaton said. “They aren’t killing bears right outside of Hinton, but they are in remote wilderness areas.” Another concern that Seaton has is the mounting evidence that hunters are using bait intended for researchers to stake out bears during the hunt. This has been identified as a concern in several areas, including the management unit adjacent to JNP.

The grizzly recovery team, a body of experts consulted by the province during the development of the recovery plan, has recommended the suspension of the spring hunt, as has Alberta’s Endangered Species Conservation Commitee. Asked why the hunt continues in the face of such criticism from the province’s own bodies, Dave Ealey points to the reduction in the number of licences offered in recent years.

“We’ve gone part way,” he said. “We’ve chosen an approach to the hunt that’s very controlled and we’ve reduced the number of licences from over 100 in 2003 down to 73 last year ... if there’s anything that we’ve been able to address, it’s being more responsive in a shorter time period to making changes.”

Parks Canada’s Wes Bradford understands the cautious approach the province is taking with regard to the information. The grizzly recovery plan will be a comprehensive document, he said, and therefore SRD will need to be sure of all its information before releasing the plan as a whole document.

“If I was them I’d probably hold fast also until I had it all in front of me. Don’t do it piecemeal with the spring bear hunt now and the rest at some other time,” he said, adding that there are other, more important causes of grizzly mortality that the province may try to address through the plan.

“They could easily implement strict garbage management in campgrounds ... that can be done tomorrow. That’s a huge problem,” he said.

“I can see why, if they have a whole set of recommendations there, they don’t want to go off on one little tangent.”

For the time being then, Seaton and others will be waiting for the information to be released, and hoping that the hunt is called off this year. If it’s not, Seaton will try to shift the odds in the bears’ favour by entering the draw for one of the available licences.