Area landowners are being offered a chance to take part in a grizzly bear study now underway in the region, says Mountain View BearSmart Society (MVBS).
The Foothills Research Institute, the Alberta government and others are continuing the Clearwater grizzly bear population inventory program again this year.
The project started in 2018 and involves compiling an inventory of grizzlies in an area from Highway 11 south to Highway 1, with Highway 22 on the east boundary and the Banff park boundary on the west.
The study area, known as BMA4, includes the western portion of Mountain View County.
“There is a serious lack of knowledge about grizzly bears in the eastern edge of their range in BMA4,” study officials said in a press release.
“There are many sightings of grizzly bears in the eastern edge and it is suspected that changes in habitat use and movements are taking place.”
Study officials want to capture and radio-collar between 10 and 15 grizzly bears in BMA4 this year “as part of ongoing research efforts to have an update on this population of bears.”
Officials would like to collar half a dozen grizzlies in the eastern portion of the BMA4. The goal is to determine a number of things, including:
- Survival rates of grizzly bears that use habitat along the eastern edge of this population unit.
- Determine the movement patterns of a sample of these eastern edge grizzly bears in relation to human features and land uses.
- Identify and document den sites of grizzly bears on the eastern edge and compare these den locations to bears that have home ranges further to the west and at higher elevations.
- Gain a better understanding of the diet and feeding habitat of these eastern edge grizzly bears and allow comparison to bears that don't reside in more agricultural areas.
Officials are trying to find landowners in MVC who would be prepared to have culvert traps set up on their properties.
“The plan is to set up a trap only if a bear has been physically observed, its tracks observed, camera sightings, damage from bear activity. The trap would be pulled after three or four days if no bear is caught,” officials said.
The Mountain View BearSmart Society is helping study officials with the project by gathering names of area landowners interested in participating.
“Last year we found there were lots of bears outside the western part of BMA4, east of Water Valley and west of Didsbury,” said society chairman Paul Fraser.
“One of the things they are trying to determine is how many bears are out there and are they living in that area or are they just travelling through that area and then coming back west. What are they doing? Are they denning in that area or are they coming back out to the West Country?
“We are not sure if there are more bears on the landscape or is it just that we are seeing them more often because there are more people out there on the landscape. That's one of the things they are trying to determine.”
Anyone interested in taking part can email their name, legal land location, directions and contact numbers to [email protected]m.
“We will pass the information on to research staff who will determine if they can set up a trap within a day or two at your location,” said Fraser.
The study has nothing to do with determining if the grizzly bear hunt should be restarted in Alberta, he said.
