Editor:
Grizzly bears have had to deal with a mediocre berry season with fruits falling and drying much to early due too weeks without rain. More importantly, their efforts of trying to find alternatives to fatten up in order to survive the quickly oncoming winter season is continuously disrupted by far too many humans out and about in the front and backcountry of Kananaskis Country.
The new and so called conservation pass in K-Country has not and will not make a difference to any of these bears – or other species of wildlife – that are trying to make a living, compared with our purely recreational reasons for being out there.
What will make a difference is if the province establishes ecological thresholds as soon as possible for important keystone species, such as grizzly bears, and based on those, limit the amount of people allowed at any given time in any given area.
There is enough scientific and anecdotal evidence that exists to establish such limits. There are rumours the size of the parking lots should provide those limits. Unfortunately, the size of those parking lots has not been designed according to any ecological thresholds. Therefore, they should not be used to establish such thresholds.
Even if the province will put their foot down about the technically illegal ditch and roadside parking, some of the parking lots are still too large to allow for uninterrupted feeding for grizzly bears and many other wildlife species.
If the presence of bears, wolves and moose is important to you, I appeal to people to let Alberta Environment and Parks know that you wish Kananaskis Country to remain wild and to quickly establish such limits.
I love spending time in K-Country, but if such limits mean that I too have to limit my own time there, then I would happily agree to any such measures.
Reno Sommerhalder,
Banff
