CALGARY—After a pair of grizzly bear deaths in Banff National Park in June, a bear safety expert wants to see the government move forward with an updated plan to recover this at-risk species.

Park officials euthanized a yearling grizzly after it suffered injuries that Parks Canada said was consistent with being hit by a vehicle. This came less than a month after another grizzly was hit by a semi-trailer truck in the park, near the Trans-Canada Highway.

Kim Titchener, a bear safety expert in Alberta, was disappointed to hear about these recent deaths, and she sees these incidents as a sign that the provincial government needs to invest more in protecting the grizzly bear population. Parks Canada estimates there are only 65 of these bears in Banff National Park, and 691 total across Alberta.

“When people come and visit Alberta, they soon learn that our last status report on grizzlies was less than 700. You jump over to British Columbia and we’re up into around 15,000 bears,” Titchener said.

“Part of what makes Alberta such a beautiful province is that we have some of these beautiful wild places where these animals live, but we’re not taking care of them like we should.”

The vast difference between the sizes of Alberta and B.C.’s grizzly populations is due to historical mismanagement, Titchener said. In the past, too many hunting tags, poaching and conflict between bears and human communities have hurt Alberta’s total.

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Titchener wants to see an updated plan to recover the grizzly bear population. The draft for an updated recovery plan was introduced by the old Progressive Conservative government more than four years ago and it received public input in 2016. But this updated plan has yet to be signed into action.

The updated document would replace a five-year recovery that was implemented in 2008. That old recovery includes strategies to reduce human-caused bear deaths, improve public knowledge on grizzly bears and better maintain grizzly habitats.

The province still uses the 2008 plan today, according to Paul Frame, a carnivore specialist with Alberta Environment and Parks. Frame said he doesn’t feel a great urgency to implement the updated document, but said the update would still help move grizzly bear recovery forward. He added that the new plan would clarify where they’re recovering grizzly bears and provide more outreach ideas to educate the public about these animals.

“One of the ways that we can best recover grizzly bears is to reduce human-caused mortalities. So then by creating some separation between humans and bears, not drawing them into our yards and into our towns, is one way to help keep them on the landscape,” Frame said.

Frame also said that while the province generally sees eight or 10 road-killed grizzly bears per year, having two happen so suddenly in Banff National Park was strange. It could have been because a cold, wet spring meant vegetation started growing later in the year, and the area along roads is usually one of the first places to green up, Frame suggested.

To tackle recovering the grizzly population, Titchener wants to see a specific target for the province to work toward. Whether it’s returning the grizzly bear population in Alberta to 1,000, 1,500 or more, she wants an updated plan to provide a set number that can show the province’s progress.

Protecting these creatures is so important, Titchener points out, because they’re an umbrella species that indicate the health of their environment. Conserving grizzly bears improves the health of their ecosystem, which indirectly helps better conserve other species living alongside them in the area.

Conserving at-risk wildlife in Alberta’s national parks is an especially pressing concern, Titchener added, because of the amount of people visiting these parks. According to Parks Canada, more than four million people visited Banff National Park and more than two million visited Jasper National Park in 2017-18.

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Titchener said officials have to start asking whether this is too many people for the wildlife living in these areas.

“People are coming here, they’re getting out of their cars, they’re walking up to bears, they’re trying to get a picture,” Titchener said.

“They have no concept, nor any respect, for the wildlife who live here and it’s just an amusement park. I feel like I’m in Disney.”

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