A decision this week to reject plans for a large development in Canmore — part of a proposal to nearly double the population — is the latest milestone in a long-standing debate at the crux of the booming Alberta tourist town’s identity. 

Residents of Canmore have long deliberated how the popular mountain community can balance the conflicting needs of wildlife and humans who live in the Bow Valley. Now, with the developer raising the possibility of an appeal while conservation advocates double down on efforts to protect local wildlife, the controversy is far from over. In the meantime, pressures in the community continue to grow.

Over the last four decades, Canmore has transformed from a community reliant on coal mines into a bustling tourist destination, spurred on by the 1988 Olympics and growing in popularity ever since. The boom drew people, businesses and dollars — but also traffic congestion, sky-high real estate costs and human encroachments into a critical wildlife corridor. 

In the debate over how to handle these issues, a swath of privately owned land on the community’s east side has often been in the spotlight. But there’s never been lasting agreement on how that property — much of it on land that covers an underground system of tunnels formerly used for coal mining — should be developed, if at all. 

Over the last six months, Canmore’s town council debated the future of the lands, while residents organized vocal opposition to the proposals. More than 240 people spoke out during public hearings, including members of the Stoney Nakoda First Nation, and hundreds more wrote letters. 

On May 25, council rendered its decision — rejecting the second of two proposed development projects that, combined, would have nearly doubled the size of the town’s population, extended its footprint and impeded on a wildlife corridor important to species such as grizzly bear, cougars and wolves. Council defeated the first proposal in a unanimous decision last month. 

“Putting this much population up against a very sensitive wildlife corridor is a concern for me,” Councillor Karen Marra said during the meeting. “As once said, you can always add more, but you can’t take away.”

Canmore Mayor John Borrowman cast the lone vote in support of the proposal. “I’m disappointed,” he said, at the meeting. “I saw this as an opportunity to bring some balance to our community, but now that balance will continue to be uncertain until some future time.”

But everyone agrees on one thing: something in Canmore needs to change. 

“The status quo, what we have right now, is not sustainable,” Borrowman said during the council meeting. “Everybody in town understands that.”

Land has long been eyed for development

Proposals to develop the land to the east of Canmore have come before town council several times since 1989, when a Calgary-based company called Three Sisters Golf Resorts Inc. purchased land in the Bow Valley and nearby Wind Valley. The lands currently owned by the Three Sisters company represent approximately 80 per cent of the remaining developable land in Canmore. 

In 1991, the group announced plans for golf courses and housing units on the sites. The scope of the proposal triggered a review by the Natural Resources Conservation Board which, in 1992, approved the application for the Bow Valley.

This decision stated that any changes to the original proposal would need approval from the town of Canmore. 

In 2004, council approved a proposal to build a resort centre on the Three Sisters property with a golf course and accommodations. Over the following years, ownership of the land passed through different groups. The current owner, Three Sisters Mountain Village, repurchased the property in 2013. 

Ron Casey was mayor of Canmore from 1998 to 2001 and 2004 to 2012. He told The Narwhal that, even though the company’s proposals have changed over 30 years, there has always been a gap between what the company proposed and what the people of Canmore need.

“The developer, for one reason or another, has not been able to get in alignment with the community. There seemed to be a feeling that because, of the [1992] decision, that they were somehow exempt from needing to consider the needs and aspirations of the community.”

Developer ‘probably will appeal’ town council’s decision

Chris Ollenberger, the director of strategy and development for Three Sisters Mountain Village, said the company spent several years developing the latest proposals to meet Canmore’s climate, transportation and housing goals, as well as the provincial requirements for a wildlife corridor that surrounds much of the property.

“I thought the applications were quite well done,” he said in an interview. “And so, [council’s decision] was disappointing.”

He said the Three Sisters group is not prepared to drop its current application. The company is considering appealing the decision under the 1992 Natural Resources Conservation Board approval and the Municipal Government Act, he said. “I suspect that we’ll want to talk to the town first, of course. Failing that, we probably will appeal.”

The town council’s approval of the 2004 proposal from the Three Sisters group remains in effect on the land. 

Several councillors said they would support development on the space outlined in the 2004 plan, which has a smaller footprint, but they want the plan updated to meet the town’s goals for climate, transportation, commercial space and affordable housing. 

Ollenberger said the 2004 plan, which centres around a golf course, no longer makes sense economically. “Frankly, it was created in a different era,” he said. “It doesn’t have the same commercial viability … and it doesn’t have some of the community benefits.”

Canmore residents considering purchasing land

Meanwhile, some of the town’s residents are working on their own plan. They’re hoping to purchase lands from Three Sisters Mountain Village and use the property to create a permanent conservation area and space for affordable housing. 

If successful, the land “could meet both community needs, wildlife protection and … sustainable housing,” Karsten Heuer, a wildlife biologist who lives in Canmore, told The Narwhal. 

Heuer said the group is in early stages of planning, which includes figuring out what the land value might be and how they could raise the funds to buy part of it. “Looking ahead, this is the time to take the momentum that we have and [seek] a long-term solution, not just a temporary reprieve,” he said. 

Hilary Young, senior Alberta program manager for the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, said she was “absolutely thrilled” by council’s decision. “There’s a great opportunity here to have a bigger community-wide discussion now about what this valley wants and needs,” she said.

She said that the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservative Initiative has been working with the Town of Canmore, the Town of Banff and Alberta Parks to conduct a cumulative effects modelling project to assess the consequences of human recreation and development on wildlife in the Bow Valley. She expects the results will be released this summer. 

“We’re hoping that the results of that modelling might lead into that bigger community conversation [about] what we can actually tolerate in this valley,” she said.

“For me and for others, what we’re excited about is this is an opportunity to be creative and to come up with really innovative and nature-positive solutions.”

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One hundred kilometres west of Calgary, the peaks of Alberta’s famed Three Sisters stand guard over some of the most desirable land in the province — sought after by humans and needed by bears, wolves and other wildlife to survive. 

The town of Canmore, set in the shadow of the Sisters, now faces a decision that could change the community for generations of humans and animals alike.

Canmore town council is weighing a proposal from a Calgary-based company called Three Sisters Mountain Village to build two new neighbourhoods on privately owned land on the town’s east side. The developments — Three Sisters Village and Smith Creek — could roughly double Canmore’s population and extend its footprint along the lower slopes of the valley as far as Dead Man’s Flats, about 10 kilometres from Canmore’s Main Street. 

Together, plans for the two developments include housing for up to 14,500 people, along with a hotel, spa, arts centre, space for a school, cycling and walking trails, commercial areas, employee housing and a commitment that at least 10 per cent of new multi-residential homes will be affordable housing. 

New neighbourhoods would help alleviate Canmore’s chronic housing shortage and create much-needed commercial space, but would also add significant pressure to the already fragile co-existence between wildlife and humans in the Bow Valley. 

“If we don’t get it right when we do this, this is really our last chance. There’s no going back,” Hilary Young, senior Alberta program director for the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, told The Narwhal.

Hilary Young, senior Alberta program manager for the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, is among the Canmore residents worried about how large new developments will impact wildlife in the region. At a recent virtual town hall on the issue, more than 90 per cent of 240 participants opposed the developments. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal

Decision in hands of Canmore town council

After years of national and provincial involvement, the decision now rests with Canmore’s town council. If council approves the proposal after a second and third reading — mandatory deliberations that councils must go through to pass a bylaw in Alberta  — the project will get a green light. 

Council will also have to extend the town’s growth boundary into land currently designated as a conservation area to accommodate the Smith Creek development. If the proposal is approved, this step is anticipated.

In early February, Canmore’s town council voted unanimously to approve the first reading for both new neighbourhoods. Council will debate and vote on the proposal at the second reading, expected to take place on April 27. 

In March, council opened a virtual town hall for members of the public to voice their opinions. Over six days, more than 240 residents of Canmore and representatives of the Stoney Nakoda Nation appeared via Zoom. Some came with Powerpoint slides and planned talks; others opened in prayer. Even children spoke. 

More than 90 per cent of those who attended opposed the development. Town representatives said it may be the largest turn-out for a public hearing in Canmore’s history. 

“It boils down to too much risk — financial risk, public safety risk and ecological risk,” Lindsey Marchessault, a local lawyer and governance expert, told council. She said she’d given birth to her daughter seven days earlier but felt it was important to speak out about decisions that would affect her children’s future.

A spokesperson for Three Sisters Mountain Village said the company has sought a ‘balanced approach’ in its plans, and has agreed to numerous ways to reduce its impacts on wildlife. But critics say the proposed wildlife corridor — essential for animals making their way through the region — is too steep and too narrow in parts. About 11 per cent of the proposed corridor is located on slopes with a steepness equivalent to a black diamond ski run. Map: Alicia Carvalho / The Narwhal

Karsten Heuer, an independent biologist who lives in Canmore and a former president of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, also joined the virtual town hall. He told council the development will lead to more human-wildlife interactions in the Bow Valley and cut into liveable habitat for animals that make their homes in the valley. 

“This is one of the last mountain ecosystems in the world where we still have all the native animals that were here when Europeans first started colonizing. It requires incredible awareness to maintain that,” he told The Narwhal. 

He said he fears the consequences will extend beyond the province if the development impedes access to the critical wildlife corridor that stretches from Yellowstone National Park through the Bow Valley and up into the Yukon. 

“Then you’ve lost not just the character [of the town], but the integrity and function of a much larger ecosystem,” said Heuer, who, in 2016, stepped down from a community advisory group led by the developer because he felt scientists’ voices were being ignored.

Residents like biologist Karsten Heuer are concerned a unique diversity of wildlife is already facing intense pressure from the bustling town of Canmore. “This is one of the last mountain ecosystems in the world where we still have all the native animals that were here when Europeans first started colonizing,” he said. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal

At the end of the public hearing, David Taylor, the president of Three Sisters Mountain Village, said the company has worked with council and residents over five years to develop plans that fit Canmore’s municipal development and integrated transit plans. 

He told the audience the lands are privately owned and will be developed.

“We don’t believe that the status quo is a solution,” he said. 

The Bow Valley is a unique corridor for wildlife

The proposal in front of council is the latest chapter in a debate that has simmered for three decades: how can a booming mountain town balance the conflicting desires of wildlife and humans who want to live in this picturesque part of the province? 

Canmore’s unique topography, on the lower slopes of the Bow Valley beneath the famed peaks of the Sisters, draws both humans and wildlife. The valley bed sits at an unusually low elevation for the Rockies, making for warmer temperatures and lusher conditions than many other areas of the province. A gravel-bed river runs along the valley’s flat bottom. This provides an accessible — and visually dazzling — route through the mountains. Just up the road, Banff National Park boasts many similar features, as well as large swaths of impermeable rock and ice. 

Evening light on the Rocky Mountains surrounding Canmore showcases the visually dazzling peaks that draw legions of tourists to the region year-round. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal

That rock and ice makes life more difficult for many animals. “Fifty per cent of Banff is worthless for most wildlife species,” Mark Hebblewhite, professor of wildlife biology at the University of Montana, told The Narwhal. 

Species that live, eat, sleep and mate in and around Canmore include grizzly and black bears, elk, cougars, wolves, snowshoe hares and owls. They rely on the Bow Valley as a critical wildlife corridor that stretches for 3,200 kilometres. Such a large corridor is essential for maintaining healthy wolf and grizzly bear populations, according to wildlife biologists. 

Grizzly bears used to live as far south as Mexico, explained Heuer, the wildlife biologist based in Canmore. Over the last two centuries, their habitat shrunk as humans moved in. Grizzly bear populations broke into islands scattered across the continent, from which bears were unable to migrate to find food or mates. Bears became genetically isolated, leading to inbreeding, deaths and even the extinction of local populations of grizzly bears.

“If you look at the Bow Valley where Canmore is situated and then zoom out to this 30,000-foot view from above, what you see is the potential for Canmore to cut off a peninsula of grizzly bear activity,” Heuer said. “If we don’t get it right here, we create another island that, over time, is going to get eaten away.” 

Grizzly bears in Canmore frequently interact with humans, often leading to harsh outcomes for bears. Almost 100 hundred bears have been killed or relocated from Canmore over the last 20 years, including Bear 148, seen here, who was known locally for her close encounters with residents, and who was ultimately shot by a trophy hunter in B.C. Photo: Leah Hennel / Calgary Herald

Successes with grizzly populations, even during a tourist boom

Established as a coal-mining town in 1884, Canmore emerged as a resort destination when the town played host to venues at the 1988 Winter Olympics. Since then, it’s been in a state of near-constant boom. The population has tripled over the last 30 years. On weekends, roads are packed with people and cars, while trails are busy with people and bikes. During the pandemic, Canmore has proven even more seductive for visitors, and is now one of the province’s most popular year-round tourist destinations.

As it grew, Canmore became a world leader in implementing science-based solutions that allow bears and humans to coexist in the valley, according to Adam Ford, an assistant professor and Canada Research Chair in Wildlife Restoration Ecology at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. The town discouraged fruit trees on private property and implemented bear-proof garbage-disposal systems. In Canmore and Banff, animal-crossing systems help bears — along with wolves, elk and other species — traverse highways safely. 

“We don’t see this anywhere else in North America, and that’s something that Canmore should be proud of,” Ford said in an interview.

The wildlife corridor proposed by the developer includes links to two existing wildlife underpasses under the Trans-Canada Highway, and one new underpass. Wildlife underpasses and overpasses have been used throughout Banff National Park to allow animals such as bears to safely cross the busy highway. Photo: Highwaywilding.org

Efforts are paying off. After grizzly bears were declared a threatened species in Alberta in 2010, their population increased from between 700 to 800 one decade ago to an estimated 865 to 973 today, according to figures reported by the province last month.   

But despite the success of some measures, the relationship between people and bears in this area is an increasingly delicate balancing act. Almost 100 hundred bears have been killed or relocated from Canmore over the last 20 years, compared to six in nearby Banff National Park. In the best-known case, Bear 148, who’d become famous in the valley for her unusually close encounters with humans — the subject of a podcast by The Narwhal — grew frustrated after an incident with an off-leash dog. Due to fears for her safety and that of humans, Bear 148 was translocated to Kakwa Wildland Provincial Park, a territory unknown to her. Within days, she wandered into British Columbia, where she was shot and killed by a trophy hunter on Sept. 24, 2017.  

Animals face growing struggles to stay out of trouble in Canmore, even with protections in place, Ford said.  

“They find themselves on the trail at night and somebody comes ripping down on a bike with their headlamp on,” Ford explained. The human bumps into the bear, even though the animal shifted to nocturnal behaviour to avoid humans.  

“They try to get out of our way. It just gets harder and harder to find that space in a narrow valley where there’s more and more people coming,” he added. 

Plans to try to keep wildlife safe despite the large influx of new residents that would come with two new developments include wildlife fencing, signage and ongoing education of residents and visitors. Residents of Canmore are already discouraged from growing fruit trees and the town has installed a bear-proof garbage-disposal system. Photo: Leah Hennel / Calgary Herald

Canmore plans have been in flux since the ’90s

The current proposal for the Three Sisters development grew out of the buzz of the 1988 Olympics. The following year, Calgary-based Three Sisters Golf Resorts Inc. purchased land in the Bow Valley and nearby Wind Valley. In 1991, the group announced plans for a massive project of golf courses and housing units on the sites. The scope of the proposal triggered a review by the Natural Resources Conservation Board which, in 1992, approved the application for the Bow Valley but not for the Wind Valley. 

 This decision stated that any changes to the original proposal would need approval from the town of Canmore. 

The decision launched 30 years of debate about what to do with the property, and is the foundation of the current plan. 

Proposals have come before town council several times. In 2004, council approved a proposal to build a resort center on the Three Sisters property with a golf course and accomodations. Over the following years, ownership of the land passed through different groups. The current owner, Three Sisters Mountain Village, repurchased the property in 2013. They’d previously owned it between 2000 and 2007.

The town of Canmore sits on the lower slopes of the Bow Valley, in an area at an unusually low elevation, meaning it’s often warmer and lusher than other parts of the province. That makes it appealing to humans and wildlife alike. Photo: Jaime Dantas / Unsplash

In 2016, the company submitted a new proposal to develop the lands at Three Sisters, having decided that a golf course was no longer viable (an unfinished golf course currently sits on part of the land). Council unanimously voted against taking the Three Sisters plan to a second reading.

Around the same time, the company applied to Alberta Environment and Parks to approve a wildlife corridor around the Smith Creek property — a necessary step before council could approve development on the land. In 2018, the province rejected the proposed wildlife corridor, concluding the space was “not satisfactory.” 

Then, in February 2020, after the United Conservative Party came to power, Alberta Environment and Parks approved an updated proposal — to the surprise of the town’s residents and council. The company and the province said the plan expanded the corridor and portions were moved to slopes more suitable for animals. 

The approved wildlife corridor wraps around much of the proposed development. It begins at an animal underpass that runs beneath the Trans-Canada highway near Dead Man’s Flats and sweeps up slope, enveloping a quarry and the Smith Creek property. It cuts back down slope to the highway where the developer will fund and build a new underpass for large animals. From there, the corridor extends about 600 metres along the highway to connect with an existing underpass. 

The approved corridor sparked criticism from conservation experts, who said it failed to meet local guidelines that had been developed with input from experts, as well as federal and provincial governments.

Young, of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservative Initiative, said the corridor is too steep and narrow in parts. Animals like wolves, grizzlies and elk prefer to travel on flatter slopes. About 11 per cent of the proposed corridor is located on slopes greater than 25 degrees, or about the steepness of a black diamond ski run, she said.

“The precautionary principle should be used so that we make a corridor that is as wide as it can be and as flat as it can be for wildlife into the future. And the corridor that was delineated just isn’t that at all.” 

Grizzly and black bears, elk, cougars, wolves, snowshoe hares and owls all frequent the Bow Valley, which biologists say is itself a critical wildlife corridor that stretches for 3,200 kilometres. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal

Wildlife are being left ‘scraps’ of habitat: professor

Many of the town’s residents, along with conservation advocates, worry the development could set off a chain of events that will increase harmful interactions between humans and animals and affect the broader ecosystem.

“If you shrink the movement corridors all the more, you’ll get some decrease in movement,” said Stephen Herrero, professor emeritus of ecology at the University of Calgary and author of the book Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance. This will further reduce grizzly bear populations, he added.

An interagency study, released as a pre-print in February, found that wildlife connectivity in the Bow Valley has already declined significantly from pre-development times — it’s down 25 per cent for wolves and 21 per cent for grizzly bears. Researchers used a new form of modeling, based on wildlife transit patterns around Canmore and in uninhabited areas, to predict what will happen if more people and buildings are added to the terrain. According to the model, connectivity will drop another six per cent with the proposed expansion.

“The Bow Valley is already severely impacting wildlife habitat and movement with the current footprint,” said Hebblewhite, who, with Ford, is one of the study authors. “If we roll these developments out, we’re going to see continued reductions and degradation of the quality of the habitats.”

The dramatic landscapes of the Rocky Mountains have long made Canmore a tourist destination. The town’s desirability has led to a housing shortage and a high cost of living. It has also meant increased interactions between people and animals, as developments, which could help alleviate the housing shortage, push further into wildlife habitat. Photo: Leah Hennel / The Narwhal

He said people often mistakenly think of a wildlife corridor as a transit route, but the term also refers to places that wildlife use as a home base. 

“In the modern world, corridors …  are the leftovers of formerly contiguous high-quality, low-elevation valley bottom habitat that we’ve cut up and then we leave [wildlife] the scraps left on the table,” he said. “They have to kind of eke their existence around it.”

He said he is frustrated that after years of work to protect wildlife on the part of multiple agencies and levels of government, the responsibility has now fallen to the town of Canmore. 

“There is an entire governance part of this about who actually gets to decide about what the future of the Bow Valley looks like when the Bow Valley has big implications nationally, provincially, and obviously for the town of Canmore,” he added.

Developer says it seeks ‘balanced approach’ in proposal

In December 2020, Three Sisters Mountain Village put its current proposal to town council. Chris Ollenberger, the company’s director of strategy and development, said the plans are based on the Natural Resources Conservation Board’s 1992 decision.

“[The board] wanted to achieve a balance of environmental, social and economic impact from the project. They determined that a balanced approach was in the public interest for Albertans. And so we’ve continued to respect [their] decision,” Ollenberger said.

The two communities would be edged with fencing to prevent wildlife from entering — an approach used successfully alongside highways in nearby Banff National Park, but relatively untested around residential neighbourhoods for humans. One exception is Jackson, Wyoming, where a three-kilometre wire fence on the edge of the town prevents elk from wandering in from a nearby refuge. 

As part of its proposal, the company submitted an environmental impact statement by Golder Associates. It recommends 100 mitigations that could reduce human-wildlife interactions in the area, including wildlife fencing, signage and ongoing education of residents and visitors. One of the chief aims is to keep humans from entering the corridor and using it to hike, cycle and let dogs loose. The company has agreed to the 100 mitigations, but it is unclear who will be responsible for enforcement. 

Wildlife fencing along highways is one way wildlife fatalities can be prevented. Fencing is also proposed to surround the entirety of the two proposed developments in Canmore, something that is rarely done around residential neighbourhoods. Photo: Aerin Jacob / Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative

The effects on wildlife will be monitored and studied as the development is slowly rolled out in multiple stages over the next 20 to 30 years, Josh Welsh, who works in community planning with the Town of Canmore, said during the public meeting. 

In his presentation, Welsh outlined what the town sees as the proposal’s strengths — and its weaknesses. He noted the Stoney Nakoda Nation was not consulted on the proposal. Long before Canmore was established, the Stoney Nakoda and other Treaty 7 Nations stewarded the Bow Valley, he said. “We’d all benefit from improving our engagement efforts with them,” he said. 

At the public hearing, Bill Snow, a member of Wesley First Nation and a consultation manager at the Stoney Tribal Administration, called on council to deny the applications. The company failed to recognize the First Nations’ water rights, reverence for wildlife and the cultural significance of these areas, he said. 

Elders Jackson Wesley and Roland Rollinmud also spoke at the hearing, sharing historical stories of the significance of the Three Sisters.

“Giving voice to the wildlife and habitat is part of the Indigenous stewardship role that the Stoney Nakoda have fulfilled for thousands of years. The voice that is missing from these project assessments is the Indigenous voice,” Snow said at the hearing. (Snow did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for an interview.)

“To not acknowledge, hear or understand the voice of Indigenous perspectives, that is the legacy of colonization,” he added. 

He called for an independent environmental assessment and a cultural study of grizzly bear management in the Three Sisters area, similar to a 2016 study in Kananaskis.

“Culturally important species, like grizzly bears, have an important role in Stoney society,” he said. While most studies approach wildlife from a western science perspective, he said they should also take into account the Traditional Knowledge perspective.

Company ‘not open to further amendments’ to wildlife corridor

In addition to residents who spoke at the town hall, more than 1,800 wrote letters in opposition. Among their concerns, they said the plan falls short of addressing Canmore’s need for more affordable housing. They questioned the financial impact on the town, though the initial assessment suggested it will be revenue-generating. Many pointed out that the development will be built on top of formerly mined areas, which could put roads and trails at risk of sinkholes. And they raised concerns about contributing to climate change. 

In early March, the company posted a statement online addressing in detail the residents’ concerns, including with respect to the town’s population, wildlife corridors, sinkholes and property values. 

 “We have heard those who have offered input,” the company said in the statement. “However, we have been clear that we are not open to making further amendments to the provincially approved wildlife corridor, nor will we consider a ‘no development’ position.” 

As development in popular tourism regions of the Rocky Mountains increases, pristine valley-bottom habitat is increasingly scarce. “We leave [wildlife] the scraps left on the table,” Mark Hebblewhite, professor of wildlife biology at the University of Montana, told The Narwhal. “They have to kind of eke their existence around it.” Photo: Karsten Heuer

Young, of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, said she doesn’t expect the company to leave its lands undeveloped. But she wishes they would commit to a smaller project. “Even if we had a much smaller footprint and that smaller footprint was fenced, I would be much less concerned than I am now,” she said. 

Ford drew a parallel between wildlife management in the Bow Valley and the Ever Given ship that became trapped in the Suez Canal in March. The margin for error is small, he said. 

“[The canal] was a human-designed system, and it still went haywire. And here, we’re talking about squeezing animals into a canal of habitat,” he said. “And if humans can’t do that in the Suez Canal, how can we expect grizzly bears to do it in the Bow Valley?”

Update May 7, 2021, at 2:11 p.m. PT: Cougars and mountain lions are the same thing. This article has been updated to reflect that fact. Rawr.

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Conservation officers have found two grizzly bear cubs dead at the Thorsen Creek landfill in the Bella Coola Valley in B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest.

“You could see where the cubs were hit,” inspector Len Butler with B.C.’s Conservation Officer Service told The Narwhal

“Tracks and the blood on the road” also suggest the mother of the cubs was struck, Butler said, though conservation officers haven’t found her.

The two cubs are the first grizzly bears to die from human-related causes in the Bella Coola Valley this season, which Butler called a “busier than normal” year for conflict between people and grizzlies.

Officers received a report that the cubs were run over on the Thorsen Creek Bridge on the main highway on June 30. The Bella Coola Valley is narrow.

“Bears do frequent the bridge crossings,” Butler said.

It’s “maybe anywhere from two to five kilometres across the whole valley,” Nuxalk fisheries and wildlife field coordinator Jason Moody told The Narwhal.

Grizzlies make their dens higher in the mountains, but follow creeks down to the river, following “the different runs of salmon as they arrive in the different creeks.”

The river is also where you will find communities of people. And “all these houses are on salmon streams,” Moody noted.

Getting to those salmon runs, bears pass right through communities, where other things can look like food: garbage, fruit trees and smokehouses can be enticing for bears. Nuxalk research has also shown that fruit trees become more appealing to bears as salmon stocks decline. Since 2014, the Nuxalk Nation has used hair sampling to track grizzly bear populations and movement in the Bella Coola Valley.

“If there’s no salmon, any attractant is increased in value at that point. So cherries, apples, gardens,” Moody said. It’s something the Nuxalk didn’t see when “there was always a stable supply of salmon,” he added.

“You have these wild stocks that are suffering or disappearing completely in other watersheds all around us,” Moody said.

But in the Bella Coola area, human efforts are helping to bring back salmon. The Snootli Hatchery, located 11 kilometres from town, releases various salmon species, including chum, into the Bella Coola River and tributaries.

A grizzly bear eats berries. Photo: Jefferson Bray

The problem with fruit trees

“In the area right now we do have a lot of bears that are wandering around,” says inspector Butler. “It’s been a very interesting year. The bears did come out early and start getting into the fruit trees.”

“The scat that’s up and down the highways right now is just pure cherry pits,” Jefferson Bray, who runs a small chalet and offers nature tours in the Bella Coola Valley, told The Narwhal.

The deaths of the two grizzly bear cubs don’t come as a surprise to Bray, who has kept tabs on grizzly bear deaths since moving to the area 15 years ago.

“We knowingly bait them into conflict and we don’t really do anything about it,” Bray said, referring to the fruit trees he sees around the valley, many of which are not secured with electric fencing. “These little cubs are just the first.”

Moody has been helping with the Nuxalk Bear Safety Group since its start more than five years ago. Unlike other community bear programs, this one puts the safety of bears first.

“There’s a deep respect that we have for the bears, which stems from a lot of our creation stories,” he said.

“The private homeowners have to realize there are going to be bears walking up salmon-bearing creeks.”

Grizzlies follow salmon streams into the Bella Coola Valley. Photo: Jefferson Bray

From spring to fall, when grizzly bears are out of their dens and looking for food, the Nuxalk Bear Safety Group wants to help them make their way safely through the Bella Coola Valley.

“There’s increased anxiety as they go throughout the valley because they’re getting pushed from one property to the next,” Moody said.

In some cases, property owners take things into their own hands when grizzlies are on their properties, Moody said. A video of a man shooting at a mother grizzly bear with her cubs went viral in the fall of 2018. The issue of how people deal with bears on their property is not new and far from over.

Securing potential bear attractants

There are efforts to encourage individuals to secure anything that a bear might consider food. The Nuxalk Bear Safety Group helps people with electric fencing kits to use around fruit trees and smokehouses. They also install cameras and monitor bear behaviour to see if fencing is working. Other services include pruning and removing trees and picking up things like composting fish guts from someone’s property if the person doesn’t have access to a vehicle.

Still, not all properties in the valley have been bear-proofed. Bray says part of the issue is attractant laws aren’t tough enough. In many cases, it’s up to landowners to decide whether or not they will do things like put electric fencing around fruit trees.

“The provincial laws are meaningless as they’re written and it makes for impotent, useless enforcement and it is a liability,” Bray said.

The Wildlife Act indicates that property owners are required to make sure attractants are secure, with exceptions for various activities including farm operations, leaving it up to many individuals to decide whether or not to keep attractants out of the reach of bears and other wild animals, Bray said.

While these laws are province-wide, Bray said there’s an opportunity for the Central Coast Regional District to “create a bylaw that circumvents … the exemptions made in the Wildlife Act and the Farm Act.”

“They could basically make a bylaw stating that people must contain their attractants for the safety of all in our community,” he said.

Without that, there are limits to what conservation officers can enforce, though they do encourage landowners to use electric fencing and other means to secure attractants like fruit trees, Butler said.

For Moody and the Nuxalk Nation, the big picture is keeping grizzly bears safe in the long run. The genetic population counts the nation is undertaking are showing preliminary numbers that are far less than provincial population estimates of grizzly bears, Moody said.

When it comes to grizzly bears, “Bella Coola is known as a black hole,” he said. “That’s the image we’re trying to change.”

The Bella Coola Valley used to be a destination for those seeking to make a grizzly bear trophy kill. Since British Columbia’s trophy hunt ended in 2017, Moody has noticed a fresh approach from the province.

“They have a lot more time to actually do work on the ground and with the bears directly,” said Moody.

Currently, the Nuxalk Nation is doing collaborative research with the British Columbia government to look at the sustainability of bear-viewing related activities.

Still, Moody said, there are different attitudes in the valley when it comes to grizzlies that are counter to the approach of the Nuxalk.

“We want we want people to live here … sustainably with the wildlife,” Moody said, “rather than … trying to keep this oasis of their property separate from all the rest of the Great Bear forest.”

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Living in cities my entire life, I’d never imagined that one day I’d live in a town where it was normal to keep a can of bear spray in the car for an impromptu hike — a town where the local paper would report on the local animals and your friend might give you a heads up that he saw a grizzly bear on the path by the river you walk nearly every day.

So when the time came to pack up and move to the Bow Valley, I hadn’t expected those would be the biggest adjustments. I thought maybe the abundance of tourists or the small town would have had more of an impact on the way I live my life. But it turned out, when your non-human neighbours include 500-pound grizzly bears, you pay them close attention.

The towns of Banff and Canmore, Alberta, are situated in the Bow Valley, where the Bow River weaves its way east. This river valley, nestled between soaring mountain peaks, isn’t just where people want to live and explore — many wild animals live here because there’s less rock and ice; there’s an abundance of fresh water and food. So it’s no surprise that seeing wildlife in or near town is fairly common. Grizzly bears, wolves, coyotes or elk make the news on any given week: features about their whereabouts based on the GPS points from radio collars, stories of human-wildlife conflict, tales of wolves eating garbage at campsites or an aggressive elk.

In the spring of 2017, as grizzlies were emerging from their dens to begin their months-long binge on food in preparation for the next winter of hibernation, Bear 148 started to make the news. The stories stacked up and as the weather got warmer she ventured east of the park to find food as the season changed.

Living in Banff, it didn’t take long to start to hear the local stories about popular bears that died from various human-related causes, like trains or cars. As I watched things unfold for Bear 148, even early on it seemed likely that this particular bear might not make it another year. What I didn’t see coming was the intensity of the outcry over her and the decisions officials made that affected her.

Bear 148 began to leave the national park, where there are different sets of rules for wildlife. She left to find food, like ripe buffalo berries, but walked right into the public spotlight, where she became a management conundrum for all of the biologists and officials who have to make the call about both keeping the public safe and keeping wild spaces intact.

Bear 148 munches on dandelions. Photo: Marc Breau

In late September 2017, Bear 148 was killed by a hunter in B.C. nearly 500 kilometres from her home range. Two months after she died, I decided I would create this podcast. I didn’t quite know what form it would take, but I knew I wanted to explore the challenges different wildlife policies and different individual decisions we make as visitors or as locals, pose for grizzly bears in the Bow Valley.

For me, Bear 148 was the way to see the bigger picture.

There are many stories about the relationship between people and grizzly bears in Alberta that are worth knowing and sharing.

Not all of those stories are part of this podcast. I wanted to hone in on a particular place and a particular bear because of the difficult questions wildlife managers were dealing with; because of the uproar in the community; because while in theory the rules for wildlife, like grizzly bears, are clean-cut, in reality things got messy.

Undercurrent: Bear 148 explores what it’s like for a grizzly bear trying to navigate this complex world we’ve built. In this series, you’ll hear from people living in the Bow Valley — artists, biologists, experts in human-wildlife conflict and government officials.

In the Bow Valley, and in many other places where people and wild animals live close together, people use the term coexistence. But what that term means off paper and in action is confusing and complex. As our natural world quickly changes, the footprint of our communities and activities expands. Bear 148’s story is a glimpse into some of the realities wildlife face.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

As Valerie Murray realized she was witnessing the end of grizzly bear hunting in B.C. she burst into tears.

After years of tirelessly campaigning to stop the trophy hunt, Murray, a founder of Justice for B.C. Grizzlies, could hardly believe that the provincial government was not only banning grizzly bear trophy hunting, but closing the loophole that would have allowed hunting for meat, provided perceived trophies such as the paws, head, hide and penis bone were not taken.

“I just had to weep. People are almost afraid to believe it. Way-to-go for listening NDP. They knew they couldn’t monitor it, so they did the right thing,” Murray said.

The surprise was echoed by Chris Genovali, Raincoast Conservation Foundation executive director.

“Wow. That’s amazing,” said Genovali, who, before the news broke, was preparing to write a news release castigating the government for allowing the meat loophole to stand.

“To hear that they have responded to the input of stakeholders, scientists and a whole range of people who did not support the concept of packing the meat out is just tremendous… It is just an amazing thing to see the government respond and that (consultations) were not just a public relations exercise,” Genovali said.

ICYMI: 87% of B.C. Grizzly Deaths Due to Trophy Hunting, Records Reveal

The government announced in August that the grizzly trophy hunt would end November 30 and that no grizzly bear hunting would be allowed in the Great Bear Rainforest, but said it would hold consultations on regulations to support the sustenance hunt.

That brought a flood of reaction from British Columbians who believed the trophy hunt would continue in the guise of a meat hunt — a viewpoint supported by advertisements on the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. website where 2018 spring and fall grizzly hunts were promoted in the usual way, with prices ranging from $20,000 to $25,000.

“They are truly a once-in-a-lifetime trophy,” said one site.

The government received 4,180 emails of which almost 80 per cent wanted a total ban on grizzly hunting, Environment Minister George Heyman and Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations Minister Doug Donaldson announced Monday.

“British Columbians told us in no uncertain terms, very clearly, how strongly they feel about protecting grizzly bears and grizzly bear habitat,” Heyman said.

“Protecting this iconic species is simply the right thing to do,” he said, adding that the new rules will leave no room for confusion between a trophy hunt and a food hunt.

First Nations will continue to be allowed to harvest for food, social or ceremonial purposes or treaty rights, but that impact is expected to be minimal, especially as Coastal First Nations led efforts to halt the hunt in the Great Bear Rainforest.

Vernon Brown, a councillor with Kitasoo/Xai’xais Nation, which has a successful bear-viewing operation in Klemtu, said the government announcement was “overwhelming, emotional and amazing.”

The first priority for Kitasoo/Xai’xais is always conservation of all resources, Brown said.

As some look at the financial impact of losing the grizzly hunt, the success of the Klemtu tourist operation, which includes the Spirit Bear Lodge and offers employment to community members, could serve as a model for other aboriginal communities, he suggested.

Between 250 and 300 bears a year are killed by resident and non-resident hunters. A recent Suzuki Foundation investigation found that hunters killed 12,026 grizzlies between 1975 — the first year that records were kept — and 2016.

Government figures put the B.C. grizzly population at 15,000 grizzly animals, but that number is questioned by some scientists, who believe it is considerably less, and nine of the province’s grizzly bear populations are on the verge of elimination.

Donaldson said although it is clear British Columbians do not support killing grizzly bears, he knows hunting is important to British Columbians and offered reassurances that the hunting culture would continue to be supported to government. “Transition” help, such as assisting with a switch to bear-viewing and promoting other hunting opportunities, will be offered to guide outfitters, he said.

In addition to immediately banning the grizzly hunt, the government will be implementing recommendations from Auditor General Carol Bellringer’s highly-critical report into the province’s management of grizzly bears.

ICYMI: B.C. Bungled Grizzly Bear Management: Auditor General

Those recommendations include improving monitoring of populations, developing an adequately funded inventory of bears, developing clear policies for bear viewing, finding better ways to conserve habitat and reviewing wildlife management in B.C.

“In 2018 we will embark on a full consultation process of B.C.’s overall wildlife management strategy,” Donaldson said.

The grizzly bear management strategy will include looking at excessive access to habitat, Heyman said.

Bellringer’s report found that there are 600,000 kilometres of resource access roads cutting into grizzly habitat, with about 10,000 kilometres added every year.

While groups who have fought to stop the hunt are celebrating the government decision, Jesse Zeman, B.C. Wildlife Federation director of fish and wildlife restoration programs, said he finds it “terrifying” that the government is making decisions based on polls rather than science and he fears that other species such as wolves and black bears will be next on the list.

“I think we will be seeing a broader narrative. The dialogue is already changing,” he said.

But, for Zeman, what irks him most is that government changed the rules around the consultation process.

“We were told the hunt itself would continue and the discussion was more about what to do with the trophy parts. . . .We have a major issue around consultation and democratic proceedings,” he said.

Zeman suspects the government wanted to end the hunt and promising a meat hunt and then saying they were consulting was simply an incremental way getting to the decision.

“I think it is terrifying that they can ask about consultation and set the goalposts and then move the goalposts. That’s the spooky bit,” he said.

Trish Boyum, a wildlife photographer and operator of an eco-charter boat, has spent years working to protect grizzlies and knows, first hand, that tourists want to see live bears.

“I am pinching myself. This is just so exciting I am hardly able to talk,” she said.

“This is absolutely huge and good to see that the government is listening. That wasn’t evident after the Site C decision.”

It is possible that there will now be pressure to end trophy hunting of species such as black bears and wolves, Boyum said.

“I don’t believe we should be killing any animal as a trophy… My background is in social work and killing animals for fun is not a good sign,” she said.

Guide Outfitters Association of B.C executive director Scott Ellis did not respond to calls from DeSmog Canada.

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Eighty-seven per cent of known, human-caused grizzly bear deaths in B.C. are attributable to trophy hunters, who have killed 12,026 grizzly bears since the government began keeping records in 1975, according to data obtained by David Suzuki Foundation.*

In 2016, 274 grizzlies were killed by humans — the vast majority of which (235) were killed by trophy hunters.

B.C. currently sanctions a legal trophy hunt by both resident and foreign hunters. Non-resident hunters killed almost 30 per cent of the grizzlies in the 2016 hunt.

The trophy hunt has become a hot election issue with the NDP and Green Party vowing to end the hunt if elected. An Insights West survey conducted in the fall of 2016 found 91 percent of British Columbians are opposed to trophy hunting.

Meantime, the B.C. Liberals are the party of choice for international trophy hunters — who donated $60,000 to the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. to help prevent an NDP win.

The Canadian chapter of Safari Club International posted to Facebook: “NDP have vowed to end the Grizzly hunt in BC if elected. SCI chapters from CANADA and the USA banded together donating $60000.00 [sic]."

The Guide Outfitters lobby to continue trophy hunting, which attracts wealthy customers from around the world who pay as much as $20,000 for a hunt. The annual spring bear hunt began April 1.

Source: David Suzuki Foundation

B.C. Premier Christy Clark is a vocal supporter of the trophy hunting industry and a past winner of the Guide Outfitter association’s President’s Award.

B.C. has some of the weakest political donations rules in Canada, which allows anyone (including foreign corporations) to donate unlimited amounts of cash.

The New York Times recently called B.C. the ‘wild west’ of political cash and a Globe and Mail investigation revealed that lobbyists are routinely making political donations under their own names while being reimbursed by corporations — something that is illegal.

The B.C. NDP and B.C. Green Party have vowed to ban corporate and union donations if elected while the B.C. Liberals have promised to appoint a panel to review campaign finance rules if re-elected.

* Article updated to clarify data is based on known, human-caused grizzly bear deaths and does not include natural mortality (most of which is unknown).

Image source: Dogwood 

87% of B.C. Grizzly Deaths Due to Trophy Hunting, Records Reveal https://t.co/rJwE9VgcS3 #bcpoli #bcelxn17 #BanBigMoney @bcliberals pic.twitter.com/GOnF9HyCYm

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) April 12, 2017

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Grizzly bear trophy hunting will be banned, for both resident and foreign hunters, if the NDP form the next provincial government, leader John Horgan promised Thursday.

The NDP is walking a fine line between meshing the party’s views with the 90 per cent of British Columbians who say they oppose the hunt and supporting rural voters who fear a grizzly hunting ban could affect food hunting.

There has been active discussion in caucus, but there was a general recognition of the tremendous opposition to the hunt from both rural and urban residents balanced by the need to reassure hunters that New Democrats are not anti-hunting, George Heyman, NDP environment spokesman said in an interview.

Horgan, describing grizzlies as an iconic species, carefully emphasized that sustenance hunting will not be affected and said B.C.’s heritage and its future can thrive if government makes the right choices.

“This province has a proud outdoor heritage that includes hunting and fishing. We also have a future that includes welcoming the world to enjoy our spectacular scenery and wildlife, creating jobs for British Columbians and a tourism industry that is second to none,” Horgan said at a Vancouver news conference.

Bear viewing creates more jobs and brings up to 12 times more in visitor spending than grizzly hunting, so the trophy hunt is affecting the economy by removing opportunities from the booming ecotourism sector, Horgan said.

Economic Importance of Keeping Grizzly Bears Alive in Great Bear Rainforest from Lonnie Wishart on Vimeo.

No one knows that better than Katherine MacRae of the Commercial Bear Viewing Association.

“A hunted bear can’t be a viewed bear,” she said.

“In recent years, the bear-viewing industry has seen double-digit growth, creating many good jobs in rural areas, but experience has shown that taking guests to view bears that are hunted just doesn’t work,” said MacRae, estimating that bear viewing brings in $13.1 million dollars annually in direct revenues and creates more than 200 jobs.

Environmental organizations and representatives of Coastal First Nations — who banned the trophy hunt in the Great Bear Rainforest four years ago — applauded the NDP move as a good first step to end the needless killing.

However, the question for many was whether grizzly hunting for meat would still be permitted under an NDP ban.

The vast majority of those hunting grizzlies do so for the hide, paws or head, but some resident hunters claim to eat the meat, even though it is generally avoided as it can carry the parasite that causes trichinosis.

B.C.’s grizzly hunt is not a subsistence hunt, it’s about bagging a trophy — a head for the wall or a rug for the floor, Wildlife Defence league campaign director Tommy Knowles said in a news release.

And the only way to end the unpopular hunt is a total ban that does not allow it to continue under the guise of a so-called meat hunt, he said.

At a Grizzly Bear Foundation hearing in Victoria last month, three hunters came forward to say they ate the meat, turning it into sausage or burgers.

It is a claim that provokes skepticism among hunt opponents and raises fears that there could be a loophole in an NDP ban.

“If hunting grizzlies for meat is to be allowed — and very few hunters eat grizzly bear –— tough regulations will need to be put in place to ensure that trophy hunting does not continue under a different guise,” MacRae said.

.@BCNDP Pledge to End B.C.'s Grizzly Bear Trophy Hunt if Elected https://t.co/v6k3eTXrSN #bcpoli #bcelxn17

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 25, 2016

Chris Genovali, executive director of Raincoast Conservation Foundation, a group that has purchased three commercial hunting tenures in the Great Bear rainforest, covering 32,000 square kilometres, said the group appreciates the NDP announcement, but is adamantly opposed to any “pretend-to-eat-the-meat” policy.

Heyman said that under an NDP government, the few people who say they hunt grizzlies for food will be eligible to get a hunting tag, but will be subject to regulations to ensure it is not an excuse for a trophy hunt.

That could mean surrendering the trophy parts of the animal or some other mechanism.

“We are not planning to leave loopholes in the banning of the trophy hunt. We are serious and we will put regulations in place to make it happen,” Heyman said.

“We will ensure that a food hunt is not used as a surrogate for the trophy hunt and we are serious about letting the bear viewing industry succeed and thrive.”

The NDP is planning to hold nation-to-nation discussions with Coastal First Nations to help them achieve their wildlife management and cultural practices goals and representatives of an NDP government would also meet with the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. to discuss compensation, Heyman said.

 “We understand when you affect people’s rights that they have held, governments then need to negotiate how you compensate for that,” he said.

Green Party leader Andrew Weaver has come out against the trophy hunt, but the B.C. Liberals show no sign that they will change the hunt.

The government says there is no need to end the hunt as the grizzly bear population is healthy with an estimated 15,000 bears — a number disputed by some scientists who say the population could be less than half that number.

The Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. is a generous contributor to the Liberal party and between 2011 and May 2015 the organization contributed almost $37,000 to the party.

Auditor General Carol Bellringer is looking into whether the government is managing the grizzly population and her report is expected next spring.

Photo credit: Mike Hoekendijk

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In early October a provincial government news release landed in the inboxes of reporters and researchers around B.C.

It boasted of a new government-commissioned report that concluded B.C. has “a high level of rigour and adequate safeguards in place to ensure the long-term stability of grizzly populations.”

Even though the report was less glowing than the news release and noted there are monitoring difficulties and a lack of funding, the review gave the BC Liberals the ammunition they needed to conclude the controversial practice of hunting grizzlies for sport is just fine.

But, here’s the thing: even if the province’s estimates of 15,000 grizzly bears in B.C. is correct — and it is a figure disputed by independent biologists, some of whom believe the number is as low as 6,000 — the stand-off over hunting intelligent animals for sport isn’t about the science. It’s about values and ethics.

“The ethical argument is clear. Gratuitous killing for recreation and amusement is unethical and immoral,” says Chris Genovali, executive director of Raincoast Conservation Foundation, one of the organizations fighting to stop the trophy hunt, which takes the lives of about 300 grizzly bears in B.C each year.

“This is a moral issue. This is about ethics and values,” reiterated Val Murray of Justice for B.C. Grizzlies, an organization hoping to make the grizzly hunt an issue in the upcoming provincial election.

“After more than 30 years as a teacher, if a child in the classroom was deliberately hurting animals, he would be immediately referred for counselling before the behaviour escalated into anything else, but people go out and just kill these bears,” she said.

Dramatic pictures of grizzlies fishing for salmon bring tourists from all over the world to “Super, Natural B.C.”

But those tourists rarely see the gut-churning videos of a grizzly being shot, attempting to run for his life and then being shot again — a sequence included in the new film “Trophy” produced by LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics.

Lush Cosmetics Presents: Trophy from Lush Cosmetics on Vimeo.

Yet, Premier Christy Clark and the BC Liberals show no sign of changing course and, in a parting shot, one of the most energetic supporters of the hunt, retiring Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett told Vaughn Palmer on Voice of B.C. that parts of the province have too many grizzly bears and they need to be shot.

It is a view that is increasingly out-of-step with the majority of British Columbians and in direct opposition to the views of Coastal First Nations who have banned trophy hunting in their territory.

Following a trend set by previous polls, an October 2015 Insights West poll found that 91 per cent of British Columbians oppose hunting animals for sport. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 per cent.

“Look at who we are as a people and a nation and where we are headed,” environmental activist Vicky Husband urged the Grizzly Bear Foundation board of inquiry in Victoria.

“We are past the time to stop grizzly hunting. It’s not ethically right,” she told the three-person panel headed by philanthropist Michael Audain.

In addition to holding public hearings, the panel is talking to First Nations, scientists, hunters, guide outfitters and conservation organizations and will use the information it garners to set up conservation, research and education programs.

The group, which is looking at the effects of climate change, urbanization, loss of habitat, accidents and food availability as well as the hunt, is writing a report that will be handed to government in February.

Another report headed government’s way this spring is from Auditor General Carol Bellringer, who is looking at whether the province is “meeting its objective of ensuring healthy grizzly bear populations throughout B.C.”

The government claims its decisions are science-based and points to the new scientific review, but the Audain panel was cautioned to take the report with a grain of salt

“This was a government report, commissioned by government, for government. It was not peer-reviewed,” warned professional forester Anthony Britneff.

Government estimates of the number of grizzly bears are based on models, but Melanie Clapham, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Victoria, who has researched grizzlies for a decade, cautioned that more research is needed.

“Models are only as good as the numbers you put in to them,” she said.

Photo credit: Mike Hoekendijk

The Liberal government scrapped the NDP’s short-lived moratorium on grizzly hunting after the 2001 election, but the hunt does not have the support of at least one key figure in former premier Gordon Campbell’s government.

Martyn Brown, Campbell’s former chief of staff, wants trophy hunting banned for grizzly bears and all other species.

“Precious animals and wildlife are being taken for nothing but a trophy. They are not being taken for food or ceremonial purposes, they are simply for people’s self-aggrandizement and whatever twisted, distorted satisfaction they get from killing an animal,” he said in an interview.

Bear Viewing 12 Times More Beneficial For Economy Than Hunting

A 2012 study by Stanford University in conjunction with the Center for Responsible Travel found that bear viewing groups in the Great Bear Rainforest generated “more than 12 times more in visitor spending than bear hunting.”

But there is increasing concern that the two activities cannot co-exist.

Grizzly bears are a passion for Dean Wyatt, owner of Knight Inlet Lodge, and he takes pride in showing tourists the bears feeding on salmon and berries near his lodge.

But, even though Wyatt wants more British Columbians to understand the vital role grizzlies play in the environment, most of his guests are from overseas because he has found from bitter experience that advertising in B.C. is dangerous for the bears.

“I would love to have more British Columbians, but the ones that come first are the hunters, so we don’t market very much in B.C.,” he told the Audain panel.

“If we put something in the paper, immediately the hunters show up to see if the bears are there. The hunters are there in their boats 24 hours later. It’s horrible,” Wyatt said.

Photo taken on a Wildlife Defence League mission to monitor and document the grizzly trophy hunt. Photo credit: Chelsea Miller/Wildlife Defence League

It is a stark example of the conflict between bear viewing and bear hunting, according to Katherine MacRae of the Commercial Bear Viewing Association, an organization that emphasizes that bear viewing must have a neutral impact on the animals.

Even with the no-impact rules, bears quickly learn that humans in a boat are not necessarily threatening and that puts them at risk when hunters show up.

“Our bears that are viewed will be killed because they are not running away . . .  hunting and viewing cannot take place together,” MacRae told the three-person panel.

Expansion of the bear-viewing industry, which brings in $13-million in direct revenue annually, is being constrained by hunting, MacRae said.

“A bear-viewing operator in the Kootenays had his guests witness a kill and then they had to see the dead bear strapped on the roof of the car,” she said.

Why Does BC Still Kill Grizzlies for Sport? https://t.co/IfBU9YrTX6 #bcpoli #bcelxn17 #cdnpoli #BanBigMoney @Justice4BCGrizz @christyclarkbc

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 23, 2016

Foreign Hunters Pay Thousands of Dollars to Kill B.C. Grizzlies

Most grizzlies hunted in B.C. are killed by foreigners who pay upwards of $16,000 for the chance to display the head and hide, but Jamie Scott of Victoria was faced with a major decision when he was awarded one of the $80 grizzly licences in the government’s lottery-style draw for resident hunters.

“As a hunter, at first I was really excited,” said Scott, but doubts set in as he recalled his father’s hunting ethics.

“You don’t become a better hunter by targeting unnecessary animals. You have to find yourself on the right side of conservation,” said Scott, who gave up his licence in return for a bear-watching honeymoon, with his wife Nicole, at Tweedsmuir Park Lodge.

“We saw 11 grizzlies and it altered my mind on the trophy hunt. I think it’s a black eye for B.C.,” Scott said.

Genovali said that the government’s position is puzzling as the economic argument against the hunt is clear.

“Notably it appears that the revenue generated by fees and licences affiliated with the trophy killing of grizzlies fails to cover the cost of the province’s management of the hunt,” Genovali said.

“As a result, B.C. taxpayers, most of who oppose the hunt according to poll after poll, are in essence being forced to subsidize the trophy killing of grizzlies,” he said.

Between 2011 and May 2015, the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. contributed almost $37,000 to the BC Liberal party.

At the heart of the ethics argument is the difference between hunting for a trophy and hunting for sustenance. Most hunters do not eat bear meat, especially as it sometimes carries the parasite that causes trichinosis — but three hunters who spoke in Victoria insisted they hunt bears for the meat.

With the provincial election just six months away, so far, only Green Party leader Andrew Weaver has come out against the hunt. The NDP has not yet settled on a position.

Photo: Misty MacDuffee/Raincoast

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Above the stone fireplace in the comfortable Saanich home, photos of grizzly bears are pinned in a casual collage.

Cubs are shown frolicking in the grass, a curious bear stands on his hind legs looking through a camera lens and, jarringly, at the top, is a massive grizzly lying lifeless in the grass, eyes closed, claws digging into the dirt, as two jubilant hunters smile into the camera.

The photo, typical of those found in hunting magazines that promote the chance to travel to Super, Natural B.C. to kill grizzles, provokes a visceral response among hunt opponents and a newly-formed group wants to harness that gut reaction.

Justice for B.C. Grizzlies is led by a small core of volunteers who, for years, have tried to end the trophy hunt by arguing the facts — such as the uncertainty of population numbers, studies that show bear viewing generates far more in visitor spending than bear hunting and — what should be the clincher for politicians, but, curiously seems to be ignored — polls clearly demonstrate that British Columbians are overwhelmingly against the hunt.

In the leadup to next spring’s provincial election, the group is aiming for hearts and minds by asking B.C. voters and political candidates to consider the hunt from a moral and ethical stance.

“We are the moral high ground. We are not the scientists,” said Barb Murray, who has fought against the hunt for more than a decade.

“We can speak with our hearts…We all have a heart and a brain and we know wrong from right. We just have to stand up and be counted and make our politicians be accountable to the majority on this ethical issue.”

The hunt is outdated and archaic, pointed out supporter Val Murray.

“It’s 2016, and stopping the hunt is morally and ethically right,” she said.

Justice for B.C Grizzlies will officially launch in September and members will then start the hard work of pinning down politicians and candidates and bending the ears of friends and neighbours.

Supporters will be asked to sign a pledge to actively lobby to end the hunt, and ask candidates in their riding where they stand.

The group will work alongside others fighting the same battle, such as Raincoast Conservation, the David Suzuki Foundation and Pacific Wild, but will take a different approach in hopes of attracting those who have not thought about the morality of killing an apex predator — listed as a species of special concern by the federal Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada — in order to put a head on a wall or rug on the floor.

In 2001, in the dying days of the NDP government, a moratorium was imposed on trophy hunting until more scientific data could be compiled, but, as soon as Gordon Campbell’s BC Liberals were elected, the moratorium was rescinded.

That decision has stuck, despite the growing distaste of British Columbians and a 2004 European Union ban on imports of all B.C. grizzly parts after an analysis found the hunt was unsustainable.

Polls show the number of people who oppose the hunt is steadily growing, with an October 2015 Insights West poll finding that 91 per cent of British Columbians and 84 per cent of Albertans say they oppose hunting animals for sport. The margin of error for B.C. is plus or minus 3.1 per cent.

Along the way, hunt opponents have gathered some high profile support, including Martyn Brown, former chief of staff to Gordon Campbell and former deputy minister of tourism, trade and investment.

Brown agrees that putting pressure on politicians and political candidates is the way to “make the B.C. government bow to the wishes of the 91 per cent of British Columbians who say they don’t support it.”

Grizzly Group Takes Aim at Trophy Hunting, Sets Sights on Provincial Election Candidates https://t.co/FPHWA79mZ2 #bcpoli @christyclarkbc

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 15, 2016

In a column published on DeSmog Canada, Brown wrote “In our hearts, most of us know that the grisly business of trophy hunting is not right. Rather, it demeans us as the planet’s apex species.”

So, why does the Christy Clark Liberal government insist on continuing the hunt?

The two main arguments are that the grizzly population is healthy, with an estimated 15,000 bears, and the hunt puts money into the economy.

But government estimates of population numbers are based on models and expert opinions, not a count of bears, and many researchers believe numbers are much lower — possibly in the 6,000 range — and kills much higher than the approximately 300 grizzlies killed by hunters each year that the province reports.

A study by Raincoast Conservation Foundation, Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria and the Hakai Institute, which analyzed 35 years of grizzly mortality data, found kill limits are regularly exceeded.

At least nine sub-populations of grizzlies in B.C are on the verge of disappearing and, in addition to the hunt, grizzlies face disappearing habitat, poachers, and vehicle collisions.

“The current hunt subjects grizzly populations to considerable risk. Substantial overkills have occurred repeatedly and might be worse than thought because of the many unknowns in management,” Raincoast biologist Kyle Artelle said after the study was published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE.

Following the Raincoast study the David Suzuki Foundation and the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre requested an investigation by Auditor General Carol Bellringer, who agreed to look at whether the province is effectively managing the grizzly bear population.

Bellringer is expected to issue a report in the spring and hunt opponents are crossing their fingers it will be released before the election.

They are also hoping that the departure of Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett, who has said he will not run in the election, will help their cause.

Bennett, a key member of Clark’s cabinet, has been a strong supporter of the hunt.

On the financial front, a study by the Center for Responsible Travel, in conjunction with Stanford University, found that, in 2012, bear-viewing groups in the Great Bear Rainforest generated “more than 12 times more in visitor spending than bear hunting.”

Bear-watching also directed $7.3-million to government coffers compared to $660,500 from hunters and created 510 jobs a year compared to 11 jobs created by guide outfitters.

“The overwhelming conclusion is that bear viewing in the Great Bear Rainforest generates far more value to the economy, both in terms of total visitor expenditures and gross domestic product and provides greater employment opportunities and returns to government than does bear hunting,” says the study.

However the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. is a powerful lobby and a generous contributor to the Liberal Party.

Between 2011 and May 2015 the association contributed almost $37,000 to the Liberal Party and a little over $6,000 to the NDP.

Jefferson Bray, owner of the Great Bear Chalet, in the Bella Coola Valley, in a letter to Bellringer, wrote “This global obscenity continues because it is lobbied, bought and paid for.”

Although the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. is the voice of those arguing to keep the grizzly hunt, the bulk of softer support comes from hunters who belong to the B.C. Wildlife Federation, who are afraid the end of the grizzly hunt would be the thin end of the wedge, said Barb Murray.

But Justice for B.C Grizzlies has no problem with those who hunt for food and the group has hunters among its’ supporters, she emphasized.

“I am a hunter and I have never shot a bear,” said David Lawrie, a former forests engineer with the B.C. government and an inaugural member of Justice for B.C. Grizzlies.

“And, when it comes to the government being capable of providing us with the number of bears, I don’t believe it. They can’t even provide us with the number of trees in the annual allowable cut and trees don’t walk,” Lawrie said.

This summer, the Wildlife Federation supported a call by Green Party leader Andrew Weaver to require trophy hunters to pack out edible meat from grizzly bears, but the support was immediately dismissed by hunt opponents.

“If Weaver’s bill is somehow approved, most of the muscles of the bears will be transported out of the bush and dumped into landfills in B.C. and beyond, while their heads and hides will continue to be transformed into rugs for living rooms and prizes for trophy rooms, “ Raincoast executive director Chris Genovali and Raincoast guide outfitter coordinator Brian Falconer wrote in an op-ed in the Times Colonist.

Weaver’s bill died when the session ended and a Green Party spokesman said Thursday that, ideally, Weaver wants to see a complete ban on grizzly trophy hunting in B.C.

“As the government made it clear that is not on the cards, Andrew tabled the bill as an interim measure with the goal of making trophy hunting more costly and regulated, especially for out-of-province hunters,” Mat Wright said in an email.

The major hope for reversing the legislation lies with the NDP and, so far, the party has not decided where it is going with the contentious issue.

Environment critic George Heyman said in an interview that discussions have taken place in caucus and will continue once summer vacation is over.

“We will be letting people know our decision before the election,” said Heyman.

“We understand that over 90 per cent of British Columbians oppose it and we are taking it very seriously,” he said.

It is obvious many British Columbians do not trust the government’s numbers and conservation is the first principle for the NDP, Heyman said.

“We understand the importance of conserving this iconic species and we will make a responsible decision,” he said.

Which is exactly what Justice for B.C. Grizzlies wants to see.

Image: Princess Lodges via Flickr

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By Martyn Brown for the Georgia Straight.

"Harvest." Such a beautiful, bucolic word.

Imagery abounds.

Golden fields of swaying wheat. Lush green vineyards of plump, perfect grapes. Acres of apples, all red and delicious.

Harvest: so suggestive of humans in harmony with the Earth.

So redolent of life.

So much more super and natural than, I don’t know — slaughter? — the word that more accurately describes British Columbia’s annual grizzly bear trophy hunt.

Actually, even that word isn’t quite accurate, for it connotes the killing of animals for food.

Grizzly bears — like black bears, cougars, wolves, lynxes, bobcats, and wolverines — are legally "harvested" without any expectation that their meat will be eaten by people.

They are mostly shot by trophy hunters whose twisted sense of vanity drives them to take those animals’ lives not for food, but for the perverse pride of killing something so magnificent, so fearsome, and so elusive.

As far as I am aware, we don’t seem to have a word in the English language to even accurately describe the wanton slaying of wild animals that is tantamount to the word we use to describe the premeditated taking of human life — namely, murder.

We don’t have a special word for that special form of state-sanctioned killing that is about the "sport" and the "fun" of finding those animals where they live and consciously ending their existence from a safe distance, with a high-powered rifle or hunting bow.

In our hearts, most of us know that the grisly business of trophy hunting is not right. Rather, it demeans us, as the planet’s apex species.

Indeed, a Insights West survey conducted last fall determined that 91 percent of British Columbians and 84 percent of Albertans are opposed to hunting animals for sport (i.e. trophy hunting).

It is a sentiment widely shared by so many people around the world, whom we hope will visit our province, six years after we made our Olympic appeal, "You gotta be here."

In making that pitch, we never told those potential visitors that the "here" we want them to "be" is a place that quietly embraces the recreational killing of the very iconic species we profiled with such pride in defining ourselves to the world.

The images of those lifeless carcasses that are so boastfully displayed on so many guide outfitters’ websites don’t quite jive with the picture that we want to globally project of "Super, Natural British Columbia."

You might say, they’re "off-brand." And sickening.

There is nothing super or natural about the sight of a killer, proudly kneeling over a dead nine-foot grizzly that only moments before was so majestically roaming this Earth.

You certainly won’t find those images on Destination B.C.’s home page, which currently features a striking picture of a grizzly bear alive in its natural habitat, but nowhere even references hunting in its list of activities of Things To Do in British Columbia.

Screenshot of Hello B.C.'s tourism homepage.

You won’t even find them in the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Tourism Association’s main promotional brochure, one of several tourism regions that are so rightly keen to talk about their wildlife and eco-tourism, but about their grizzly hunts, not so much.

It features a gorgeous shot of a swimming grizzly on the front cover, but nary a shot of a shot grizzly, nor a specific reference to grizzly bears in its two-paragraph reference to hunting.

The business of death, celebrated as sport, is fundamentally incompatible with the celebration of life that lies at the core of British Columbia’s destination tourism identity.

Guide Outfitters Promote Killing Bears

Indeed, the grizzly trophy hunt is British Columbia’s great shame; it is a death sport that both the tourism industry and the pro-hunting B.C. government agree is best quietly encouraged without widely advertising its odious, bloody truth.

The B.C. guide outfitting industry has no such compunctions.

It proudly proclaims that it attracts more than 5,000 hunters annually, who spend more daily per capita than any other visitors. It is pleased to tell us that those guide outfitters support 2,000 jobs in B.C. and generate about $116 million in revenue each year.

The government is also quick to point out in its less visible forums that the resident and non-resident hunting industry contributes some $350 million annually to the province. It is an industry that generates over $7.3 million in license fees, including $2 million from non-resident hunters and $5.3 million from resident hunters, and a further $2.25 million in surcharges that fund conservation projects.

Photo of a trophy hunt in Kwatna estuary, B.C. Photo: Hunting B.C.

The total economic contribution of the grizzly bear hunt is estimated to be as much as $7.5 million. That includes $4.8 million from resident hunters and a further $2.7 million from nonresident hunters, who each typically pay one of B.C.’s 245 guide outfitters $13,000 to $27,000 to stalk and perhaps "bag" a grizzly.　

That $7.5 million economic value is peanuts in the context of our $255-billion provincial economy.

A 2010 report by the David Suzuki Foundation found that of the nearly 11,000 grizzly bears killed by humans between 1977 and 2009, some 87 per cent — or 9,484 — were legally killed by hunters.

To hunt a grizzly bear in B.C., resident hunters must first win a lottery. They must be among the more than 3,000 applicants who are authorized each year under the Limited Entry Hunt system to shoot a grizzly.

In 2014, hunters "harvested" 267 grizzly bears, a number that has remained relatively consistent over the last 20 years, as you can read here and here.

In addition, some 40 percent of the total grizzly bear population that the province targets for trophy killing are allocated to guide outfitters.　

Most of their clients are nonresidents, who are typically obliged to hire those experts in fulfilling their immortal quests to snuff out those rare and truly awesome animals’ lives.

Without trophy hunting, the defenders of that practice maintain, our entire wildlife population would soon suffer from all sorts of adverse impacts. It’s all about "conservation," don’t you know?

In essence, we must kill those animals to stop them and others from dying from starvation, or from adverse human impacts, or from over predation. Or so the argument goes.

We need more hunters, the province maintains. That is largely why it launched a hunter recruitment strategy that it boasts was successful in increasing the number of resident hunters by over 24 per cent, from 82,000 "only 10 years ago" to more than than 102,000 today. Yippee.

Have no fear, the authorities assure us, it’s all carefully controlled and managed to keep species’ populations in balance, through the rigours of applied science and sound stewardship.

Perhaps.　

We will learn next spring if that’s true in respect of grizzly bears, when B.C.’s auditor general releases the results of her current review into whether or not the government is effectively managing that particular species’ population.

91% of BC and 84% of AB residents opposed to trophy hunting https://t.co/lTXCmvBxPW @christyclarkbc #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/YfIrT5fQ7V

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) July 6, 2016

Government Estimates Come Under Fire

To say that the science of grizzly bear management is sketchy is an understatement, as so many scientific reviews have determined.

The province assures us that there are still about 15,000 grizzlies living in British Columbia — less than half the number that once roamed the land. Yet the fact is, it does not know what the true number of that population really is, since its estimates are based on so many fluid and assumed variables.

One study from 2013 estimated that the actual mortality of grizzly bears might be as much as 70 percent higher than the levels predicted by the province’s scientific management models.

Another study published in 2014 highlighted how grizzly bear populations are unexpectedly inhabiting so many more islands than the government had thought in one area on B.C.’s Central Coast. The population data is different, depending on how it is obtained and calculated, and it is anything but an exact science.

How can the government be so confident that its numbers are correct? It can’t. And it knows it, as I strongly suspect B.C.’s auditor general, Carol Bellringer, will find — hopefully, in advance of the provincial election.

Approximately 35 per cent of British Columbia is closed to grizzly hunting. Yet some 13.4 per cent of British Columbia’s grizzly bear habit falls in provincial parks and protected areas that are typically open to hunting for people’s "use and enjoyment," unlike the national park spaces where hunting is strictly prohibited. How crazy is that?

The good news is that the province’s recent Great Bear Rainforest Order has now extended the area where grizzly bears will be protected throughout most of that gigantic 6.4-million-hectare area that lies along B.C.’s north and central coast.

But the numbers of grizzlies that will be saved by that measure won’t do much to offset the hundreds more that are slaughtered each year in other regions, despite the best efforts to stop it by groups like Pacific Wild, the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, the David Suzuki Foundation, Western Wildlife Outreach and others.

Screenshot of a Raincoast Conservation Foundation Instagram post detailing their grizzly tracking program. Photo: Raincoast Conservation.

It is a sad indictment of our public apathy about the grizzly trophy-hunt that groups like Pacific Wild now consider it a win when the government bows to their pressure not to triple that hunt in the Peace region.

In making that announcement, the government acted like it was doing us all a favour, in an abundance of caution and concern for protecting that region’s grizzly bear population, even though it was also quick to assure us that it could have sustained such an increase in human-caused mortality.

I can’t help but wonder how quickly we might mobilize public pressure to end grizzly trophy hunting, as Green Party leader Andrew Weaver has proposed, if we somehow managed to press the B.C. celebrities who pitched the 2010 "You Gotta Be Here" campaign back into service.

In my experience, petitions signed by even tens of thousands of citizens make worthy and important statements, but they mostly fall on deaf ears. They are barely even reported. Which is demoralizing and discouraging, to say the least, for those who work so hard to get those petitions signed and tabled in the legislature or in Parliament.

Fact is, the grizzly bear trophy hunt will only be stopped when the politicians who now support it are sufficiently politically embarrassed into doing the right thing. Like the campaigns of yesteryear that were successful in stopping the unfettered assaults on B.C.’s old-growth forests, it will take a considerable international appeal.

There are simply too many voices at the Christy Clark cabinet table and in the B.C. Liberal caucus who are resolutely committed to drowning out the voices of reason that want to end the barbaric practice of killing grizzlies solely for the sake of seeing them dead.

There are too many vocal hunters, guide outfitters and rural voters who John Horgan dares not enrage by vowing to reimpose the moratorium on grizzly bear hunting that Ujjal Dosanjh’s NDP government had introduced on the eve of the 2001 provincial election.

Buying up guide outfitter licences with public or private funds to incrementally retire their allocated grizzly quotas can’t hurt. But it’s not the answer.

To stop the grizzly trophy hunt, British Columbians will need to do much more to mobilize public pressure on the politicians.

One potential effective strategy in that regard would be to start by mobilizing public pressure on B.C.’s tourism industry to live up to its Super, Natural British Columbia brand. It should not be allowed to sit on its hands and do nothing when it could reap so much more economic benefit from acting to protect grizzly bears.

A 2014 study, Economic Impact of Bear Viewing and Bear Hunting in the Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia, determined that bear viewing in that region generates 12 times more visitor spending and 11 times more direct revenue for government than bear hunting.

It also generates almost 28 times more employment, with 60 times more people engaged in bear viewing in that region than in bear hunting.

Plus, more people than ever are coming to B.C. for its living wildlife experiences, including to see something so beautiful and precious as a grizzly bear, whereas trophy hunting is declining as a tourism draw.

If it takes giving that industry a black eye for its tacit support of a practice that it is too ashamed and embarrassed to even promote as a globally desired tourism activity, so be it.

Hope springs eternal that the likes of Michael J. Fox, Steve Nash, Ryan Reynolds, Kim Cattrall, Eric McCormack and Sarah McLachlan might once again step up to the plate, to send the world yet another timely message.

And that message is this: if you want to stop B.C.’s grizzly trophy-hunt, you gotta be here — loud and proud — to make the B.C. government bow to the wishes of the 91 per cent of British Columbians who say they don’t support it.

Martyn Brown was former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell’s long-serving chief of staff, the top strategic advisor to three provincial party leaders, and a former deputy minister of tourism, trade, and investment in British Columbia. He is the author of the ebook Towards a New Government in British Columbia. Contact Brown at towardsanewgovernment@gmail.com.

Image: Grizzly bear in B.C.'s Khutzeymateen Sanctuary. Photo: Heather & Mike/Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Six B.C. mines pose threats to Alaska’s most productive salmon rivers and should be investigated by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, according to a coalition of conservation groups and Alaskan First Nations who are invoking legislation that says it is the Interior Department’s duty to investigate when foreign nationals may be affecting U.S conservation treaties.

A petition presented to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell suggests that B.C. mines close to the Taku, Stikine and Unuk watersheds diminish the effectiveness of two treaties that protect Pacific salmon, steelhead trout, grizzly bears and woodland caribou.

The treaties are the Convention for the Conservation of Anadromous Stocks in the North Pacific Ocean and the Convention on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere.

The coalition of U.S. and Canadian groups, including Earthjustice, the United Tribal Transboundary Mining Work Group, Sierra Club of B.C., Craig Tribal Association, Friends of the Stikine Society and Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, are echoing a previous call by Alaska’s congressional delegation to refer the transboundary mines controversy to the International Joint Commission.

DeSmog Canada wrote a series on the transboundary tensions stirred up by B.C.’s mining ambitions last year.

Kenta Tsuda, Earthjustice associate attorney, said the petition provides another reason for the U.S. federal government to take action.

“Canadian authorities are letting these projects go ahead and the U.S. government is still waiting on the sidelines,” he said.

The six mines that the coalition says are endangering the rivers are:

– The Tulsequah Chief, which has leaked acid drainage for decades;

– Red Chris, which is owned by Imperial Metals, the same company that owns Mount Polley (where the collapse of a tailings dam sent mine waste and sludge flooding into local lakes and rivers);

– Schaft Creek;

– Galore Creek;

– Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM), which will tap into one of the largest gold and copper deposits in the world; and

– Brucejack.

Frederick Olsen Jr., United Tribal Transboundary Mining Work Group chairman, said it is time for Jewell to become involved in the problem as the federal government has a fiduciary responsibility to the tribes.

“The development and operation of the B.C. mines could severely impact life on the U.S. side of the border,” Olsen said.

“Already the Tulsequah Chief Mine has polluted the Taku watershed for decades.”

The petition to Jewell says all the mines involve large-scale infrastructure development and generate immense quantities of tailings and mine wastes, meaning water treatment will be required in perpetuity.

“The threats of acid-mine drainage and heavy metals pollution — not to mention catastrophic dam failures — will hang over the watersheds for centuries after the closure of the mines,” says a statement from the group.

A spokeswoman for Jewell’s office said she is aware of the situation and the petition.

Tsuda said the petition is being submitted under the 1971 Pelly Amendment, which does not define a timeline for a response, but which makes it clear the agency is required to act within a reasonable time.

“In this particular case, Secretary Jewell should respond promptly by undertaking an investigation of the six mines we describe. Not only because we believe the circumstances legally obligate the agency to do so, but also because so much is at stake for communities in southeast Alaska,” Tsuda said in an e-mailed response to DeSmog Canada.

Salmon from the rivers support local fishing businesses and First Nations.

“Commercial fishermen from Southeast Alaska also rely on these harvests, harvesting tens of millions of dollars worth of salmon from these three rivers annually. The watersheds collectively support hundreds of Alaskan workers and their families,” he said.

There have been recent precedents where the Secretary of the Interior has stepped in, such as in 2011 and then 2014 when the department concluded that Iceland’s whaling activities were undermining worldwide efforts to conserve whales and diminishing the effectiveness of the Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species. The U.S. federal government then instructed agencies to undertake diplomatic action to encourage Iceland to change its policies.

Image of Mount Polley mine disaster by Global News

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