Logging in bear habitat worries environmentalists
Companies say effect is minimal
By Jen Gerson
As logging in the sensitive Castle region in the province's southwest corner looks set to begin, environmentalists are lamenting the expected loss of grizzly bear habitat."The population (of bears) is trying to maintain itself because of already excessive development. It's going downhill, but that doesn't mean we should go in there and keep developing and wipe them all out," said Wayne McCrory, a bear biologist who has signed up for the ongoing crusade to protect the region
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Spray Lake Sawmills has been granted a licence to harvest 120 hectares of forest, according to the Alberta government. But McCrory said neither the company nor the province are taking the cumulative effect of development into consideration. Even rarely used roadways will cut off a region to bears, he said.
The Castle Special Management Area sits in a wildlife corridor that is home to 51 grizzly bears, he said. By allowing more people into the once sparsely populated region, the government risks isolating smaller populations of bears, making the species unsustainable in the region.
"This area is what we call a population sink," McCrory said. "Castle already has excessive road and trail development that impacts grizzly bears."However, Dave Ealey, a spokesman for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, said the company met the government's environmental expectations.Logging would be carried out in patches similar to the damage left by a wildfire, he said. Some roads will be required for logging, he added.
"But it's the permanence of that access, that's an important point. Roads looking at access in that area are all temporary winter roads," he said. "This is intended to reduce both the footprint, as well as the potential for other uses because as soon as that access is finished with, it will be able to be reclaimed."
The area to be logged comprises a small fraction of the Castle Special Management Area, he added.
The region, which was put under the province's protection in the late 1990s, is larger than Waterton Lakes National Park and sits near the corner of the province at the B.C. border just south of Crowsnest Pass.
McCrory said he and other environmentalists would like to see the area turned into a park.
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Spray Lake Sawmills has been granted a licence to harvest 120 hectares of forest, according to the Alberta government. But McCrory said neither the company nor the province are taking the cumulative effect of development into consideration. Even rarely used roadways will cut off a region to bears, he said.
The Castle Special Management Area sits in a wildlife corridor that is home to 51 grizzly bears, he said. By allowing more people into the once sparsely populated region, the government risks isolating smaller populations of bears, making the species unsustainable in the region.
"This area is what we call a population sink," McCrory said. "Castle already has excessive road and trail development that impacts grizzly bears."However, Dave Ealey, a spokesman for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, said the company met the government's environmental expectations.Logging would be carried out in patches similar to the damage left by a wildfire, he said. Some roads will be required for logging, he added.
"But it's the permanence of that access, that's an important point. Roads looking at access in that area are all temporary winter roads," he said. "This is intended to reduce both the footprint, as well as the potential for other uses because as soon as that access is finished with, it will be able to be reclaimed."
The area to be logged comprises a small fraction of the Castle Special Management Area, he added.
The region, which was put under the province's protection in the late 1990s, is larger than Waterton Lakes National Park and sits near the corner of the province at the B.C. border just south of Crowsnest Pass.
McCrory said he and other environmentalists would like to see the area turned into a park.
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