Editor: Re: Canmore to appeal Dead Man’s ASP
Kudos to the Town of Canmore for standing up for regional wildlife movement in its appeal to the MD of Bighorn’s plans to compromise the Dead Man’s Flats wildlife underpass with industrial development.
This wildlife underpass, which cost $1.8 million to build in 2005, is at a critical node in a much larger network of wildlife corridors and habitat patches that various developers and governments have worked to conserve between Banff National Park and Kananaskis Country for several decades.
According to Government of Alberta data, it facilitates an average of 600+ passages by wolves, grizzly bears, elk and other large mammals per year and has led to a 65 per cent reduction in vehicle-wildlife collisions along the TCH at Dead Man’s Flats.
The MD’s current intent to allow development right to the mouth of this underpass flies in the face of earlier agreements it crafted alongside the Town of Canmore, Parks Canada and the Government of Alberta to conserve regional wildlife movement (1999 BCEAG Wildlife Corridor and Habitat Patch Guidelines).
The visionary MD councillors and senior planners who worked on those award-winning guidelines would shudder to hear the tax-revenue-at-all-costs rhetoric flying around the MD offices now.
Karsten Heuer,
Canmore
