A public consultation process as part of a plan to reintroduce plains
bison to Banff National Park is set to begin immediately.
Environment Minister Peter Kent said Friday (Jan. 27) during the
announcement at the Banff Park Museum National Historic Site the
consultation process will allow Parks Canada to develop a plan to return
plains bison to its natural habitat in the Rocky Mountains.
“We have evidence to show that bison inhabited this region for thousands
of years. We are now about to launch a process that may eventually see a
wild plains bison herd returned to a natural habitat in Banff National
Park,” said Kent, who is also the minister responsible for Parks Canada.
“We want to fully understand the challenge, and we want to hear from
everyone who wishes to share their views with us – about the issues and
also about the solutions.
“Over the coming months, we will conduct a broad consultation to
consider all of the potential impacts both in the park and on
neighbouring lands, so that we can consider and address possible solutions.”
As part of the consultation process, which Banff National Park
Superintendent Pam Veinotte said would begin in February, Parks will
work with the Alberta government, local First Nations and other key
stakeholders and partners to develop a preliminary bison reintroduction
plan.
Once complete, Parks intends to take the preliminary plan to the public
and use those discussions to finalize the Banff National Park Bison
Restoration Plan.
Veinotte said she anticipates the preliminary plan should be complete by
late spring, giving Canadians the summer and fall to provide feedback.
“We’ll be able to take the results of all of that input to work through
the needed mitigations and opportunities leading to that final plan,”
Veinotte said.
Harvey Locke, a director with the Eleanor Luxton Historical Foundation,
which presented Parks Canada with a proposal last year to help move the
question of bison reintroduction forward, said by the late 1870s bison
were nearly exterminated in North America, and certainly, extirpated in
the Banff National Park region.
“They were in this valley for a very long time and they are a missing
part of this ecosystem and they are a missing part of the visitor
experience to Banff National Park,” he said.
Parks Canada is looking at bringing bison back to Banff – a stated goal
in the 2010 Banff National Park Management Plan – to further ecological
restoration in the park, restore a lost cultural connection between
plains bison and aboriginal people in the region and provide Banff park
visitors with the opportunity to see one of North America’s most iconic
animals.
Parks Canada closed Banff’s bison paddock that sat for nearly a century
at the base of Cascade Mountain in 1997.
And as to when bison might be seen roaming the mountain valleys of
Banff, Kent said he hopes that will occur in the next few years.
“This could be done certainly in the next couple of years,” Kent said.
