Editor: Since being an intervener in the 1992 Natural Resources Conservation Board’s hearing on Three Sisters Resorts, BowCORD has focused its main conservation efforts on protecting wildlife movement corridors and habitats in the Bow Valley, including the ecological integrity of the Bighorn Bow Corridor.
As we read on the MD of Bighorn’s website, “Living with Wildlife”:
“The MD of Bighorn is home to a wide range of wildlife species. It is for this reason that many people are drawn to the area every year to live and recreate.
There are many areas in the MD of Bighorn that function as wildlife corridors allowing wildlife to move between habitats throughout the landscape.”
We ask you to remain true to “Living with Wildlife” and not approve this ASP until:
There is provision made in the ASP for the wildlife that “draws people” to Dead Man’s Flats and the MD by ensuring that the extension of the Across Valley Wildlife Corridor under the G8 Legacy wildlife crossing below the Trans-Canada Highway meets current scientific standards, with no blockage of wildlife movement through to the provincial wildlife habitat patch along the Bow River.
While the East ASP acknowledges that: “There is an existing wildlife underpass in the Trans-Canada Highway right-of way to the south of the East ASP boundary” and “any future development/subdivision…will take into account appropriate remediation measures to allow movement of wildlife through the underpass” – there is no functional extension of the wildlife corridor to the Bow River.
Further, the only “wildlife policies” provided by Golder and Associates deal with “wildlife exclusion” and “fencing” of the development, not keeping the corridor functional and unblocked by development.
At present the East ASP fails to provide an extension of the provincially designated Across Valley Wildlife Corridor to the Bow River AND actively blocks wildlife from accessing the habitat patch along the Bow River with a storm pond and light industrial development.
In the North ASP Area, the only connectivity that is proposed is “connectivity to the Bow River and pedestrian trails that encourage walking and cycling.”
The MD of Bighorn and the Exshaw Community has a long history of commitment to and protecting wildlife corridors
As you know, the Dead Man’s Flats underpass below the Trans-Canada Highway is part of the $3 million 2002 Canadian G8 Environmental Legacy awarded to ensure the movement and survival of multi-species of wildlife moving through the Wind, Bow and Spray Valleys to Banff Park and down to the Bow River. Exshaw’s own Lafarge Canada donated a significant gift in cement to complete this wildlife underpass.
This across valley corridor and its exit through Dead Man’s Flats to the Bow River is a wildlife movement corridor and habitat area that has regional, provincial and national recognition and support.
This ASP puts the survival of Bow Valley wildlife at risk.
What is at stake in Dead Man’s Flats and the Bow Valley is whether the large mammal populations of the central Canadian Rockies remain viable or dwindle away as they have done elsewhere.
What is at stake is whether the Bow Corridor can achieve a sustainable wildlife population that makes our splendid environment such a special place – or whether our ASPs leave no room for the wildlife that “draw” people to our towns.
Since 1995, the MD of Bighorn and the community of Exshaw have historically been partners in accepting BCEAG Guidelines for Wildlife Corridors and Habitat Patches as policy and have worked to develop them based on ongoing Provincial scientific data.
In a Nov. 26, 1997 news release, Deputy Reeve of the MD of Bighorn, Nancy Lyster stated that: “[BCEAG] is a proactive solution to a very high issue faced by each of our land jurisdictions in the Bow Valley. Now we are proposing a common set of ground rules, with any exemptions or existing commitments spelled up front.”
Although these provincial guidelines for minimum corridor width and steepness of slope are not legally binding, this community and this ASP made a commitment to the protection of “biodiversity and ecosystem function” which has to include making provision for the safe and effective movement of wildlife from the Across Valley Corridor to the Bow River habitat patch.
In conclusion, with a new government in Edmonton there may be an opportunity to open discussions with the Province on new land uses in the Dead Man’s Flats East ASP Area with a view to providing the space wildlife need to move below the G8 Legacy crossing through the wildlife corridor to the Bow River.
We ask this council to withhold approval of this ASP until it is consistent with the stated values of the MD, and the commitment this community has historically made to protect wildlife, their survival and their movement corridors.
Steering Committee,
Bow Corridor Organization for Responsible Development.
Heather MacFadyen, Alan MacFadyen, Colin Ferguson, Eileen Patterson
