"Adventure Tourism Information About Places Ya'Gotta Go To!"
Part three: The Swan Hills Grizzly Bear
The Swan Hills grizzly bears are infamous in northern Alberta. But the old tales are rapidly fading, tales that excite our senses and enrich our lives. Unless there is a miracle, our beleaguered grizzlies will not be walking these hills forever.
Between 1845 and 1848, Canadian artist, Paul Kane, swept through the region. On Oct 28th, the Kane procession proceeded up the Athabasca River just south of the Swan Hills.
Evil Spirit:
"We passed the mouth of the Oldman's River. The Indians say that an evil spirit once came down this river-which is so rapid that no canoe can ascend it- and that having reached its mouth, where it enters the Athabasca, he made five steps down, leaving a rapid at every step. These rapids are a mile apart. After which he returned and went up his own river, and has not since been heard of."
Bear Cubs:
Close by, the artist recounts another day in his journal. The day is Oct 22nd, from the following year.
"The men were all in extraordinary good sprits [interesting choice of words]. I measured a tree lying on the ground, which had been cut down by a beaver; it was seven feet in circumference. We found three bears left en cache by Colin Fraser, an old one and two cubs. He told me afterwards that he had killed the two cubs at one shot, while one was climbing over the back of the other to ascend the bank. The cubs proved to be fine eating, and were much relished as our fresh provisions had been long exhausted."
A Man Named Bill:
If Mr. Frazer was a tremendous marksman, Bill Burns was not. Sometime around the year 1900, a man by the name of (you guessed it) Bill Burns had a run-in with a grizzly. Bill was working a survey party on the Chalmers Trail, which cuts through the Swan Hills.
"He and a companion came upon the tracks of an enormous grizzly bear which had been feeding on the crew's garbage dump." With a rope, these two bozos managed to snare this animal by the hind legs. "All around the ground had been ripped to shreds. Stout young trees had been snapped off like matchsticks."
Further on:
"When the bear spotted Bill, who had the only gun, [why did Bill get to carry the gun?] it let out a roar that froze his blood. His frightened first shot, stuck a rib. Bill's second round was even more disastrous, it cut the rope. The grizzly headed right at him as fast as it could go. A panicked third shot hit the bear right in the eye. It dropped dead not three meters away." (The Bill Burns story comes from, A History of Lesser Slave Lake, Alberta Recreation and Parks).
Promo:
There once was a clever young businessman/promoter by the name of James Kennedy Cornwall, a.k.a. Peace River Jim, or Apostle of the North. He had a vision. Now, this Peace-Apostle guy wanted to open up the Peace River country for agricultural settlement. So determined was he, that in the year 1910, a wee party was assembled. He gathered some prominent writers and agriculturists from all over the U.S. and Canada. A kind of schmooze-fest was served up, Alberta-style, with the promise of great hunting and fishing, a free expedition for all. There needed to be a transportation link to the Peace Country and a promoter to get the ball rolling. The Peace River district was isolated because of a rugged, wild wilderness – the Swan Hills.
There is a mean, unattractive little book entitled, North with Peace River Jim. A line from it stated, "How much good Cornwall's expedition accomplished will never be known?" I beg to differ. I believe he pulled it off. Jim would be proud! Its Mack-Tack like cover, bound by some kind of sonic, sixties, super-glue, immediately dislodged upon my opening it. Polyester Jacket aside, Cornwall knew "that when there was a demand for pulp wood, the banks of the river would be cleared as if by magic, and farms would dot it's shores."
"Captain Niklas told of a moose and bear he had seen swimming in the river and the lake and eager fingers held the trigger of the guns, but to no avail." Why do people always have to be blasting at something?
"The banks of the river (Little Slave) are fairly low, these woods give way to wide swamps and great expanses of hay meadows through which the wagon trail winds."
More Bears:
I have hitherto mentioned that Marten Mountain rises up from the eastern shores of Lesser Slave Lake. It forms the beginning of the Pelican Mountains. If you will recall, it is a kind of arm-like extension of the Swan Hills, the eastern most outlier of the Rocky Mountains. It is here that "Lawrence started trapping about 1930. Billy Mullins and Ned Vulleneuve helped Lawrence build five cabins on the trap-line" (Echoes along the Athabasca River).
"In later years, Rene Guenette decided to go on a trip with him. They traveled by dog team. The day after they got to the cabin on Marten Mountain, Lawrence and Rene went out on the line checking traps. On the way back to the cabin, they shot a moose. Lawrence left Rene with the dogs on the trail while he went out to dress the moose. Three big grizzly bears came along and circled right past Rene and the dogs. Lawrence had to leave the moose and both of them had to get away quickly. This is only one of the encounters Lawrence had on the trap-line with grizzly bears and wolves" (Echoes Along the Athabasca River).
Past and present:
There is a splendid research paper concocted sometime around 1975, The Past and Present Status of Plains and Boreal Forest Grizzly Bear in Alberta, by Pia L. Nielson. Some fine Swan Hills grizzly info is given.
"As far back as 1914, (Francis 1933) who accompanied geological surveys of Canada expeditions to Great Slave Lake, received reports of grizzlies in the area south of Lesser Slave Lake. E.B. Dennis, a trapper told Francis three grizzlies were shot by an Indian a dozen miles below Athabasca Landing, and a very large grizzly was seen for three consecutive years at the House River."
The Baron:
Nicknamed "The Baron", R.W. H. Eben-Ebenau was a legendary trapper in these parts. In 1944 he shot a rather impressive grizzly bear.
"Apparently the first Canadian record of this race [Swan Hills grizzly] was that of an adult male (length, 2,286 mm.). Shot by R.W.H. Eben-Ebenau in Swan Hills, 16 miles due east of Widewater, Nov.6, 1994" (cf. Anderson, 1946).
"The adults of this area are monsters-regarded as the largest grizzlies in Canada and among the largest grizzlies in the world" (The Mammals of Alberta, J. Dewey Soper, LL.D).
Dewey might have been stretching it to call them some of the biggest in the world, but... Now, Mr. Eben-Ebenau's son is an affable fellow who resides in an excellent pad overlooking Lesser Slave Lake. We chatted one day about the above mentioned bear. He informed me that, at the time, it was the largest grizzly bear on record in Canada. It yielded from a place called Prairie Creek (Grizzly Mountain). It is interesting to note that the old Baron had been aware of this creature for a decade before finally catching up with it. Apparently, when the pelt was stretched out, it measured nine feet by nine feet, and the total length from nose to back paw was 110 inches. It weighed approximately 1000 lbs. and is listed in the Boone and Crocket Society's record book as shown: score 25 6/16, lower jaw 16 6/16, skull 9. The trappers' son handed me these measurements (although I'm not really sure how to read them), 11-17-7-5.
Bella Twin:
The nineteen-fifties saw many accounts of grizzly bears in the Swan Hills. The Bella Twin incident is surely the most famous. She brought down a huge bear with a puny 22-caliber rifle. It happened on a spring day in 1953. I have read several accounts of this legendary story, and even had the good fortune of speaking with her grandson. As tall-tales tend to be, they are all slightly different. Let us recount what I believe to be the most favorable version. (There is an interesting side note as well: R.W.H Eben-Ebenau purchased this bear's skull from Bella Twin.) With peashooter in hand, she killed the big-boy out of self-defense. After firing a few shots, one fateful bullet caught the bear directly in the eye, dropping it on the spot. She could very well be 1953's luckiest person, to say the least. Again, it weighed about 1000 lbs. and was some kind of record breaker. (For more info see: Boone and Crocket Society.)
Apparently, the Boone and Crocket Society's record keeping should be regarded with some skepticism. With that, I hesitate to use them as a reference. Still, in this case, pristine exactitude is not really necessary when it can easily be seen that the Swan Hills harbored many larger than average grizzly bears.
Al Oeming
The Swan Hills grizzly bears are almost synonymous with the name Al Oeming. Up to his knees in muskeg, he studied them extensively from 1947 until 1958. As you know, he has always claimed them to be the "last of the Plains Grizzlies".
In 1958, the provincial government banned bear hunting in Zone 17 (the Swan Hills). From what I can see, he definitely played a key role in the decision. Chatting with him on a few occasions, his sincerity and love for the bears is undeniable. I can only sit back and wonder why he never continued his work. On the other hand, as far as Alberta politics is concerned, he might have become overwhelmingly fraught with discouragement. But I should not speculate about his intentions.
In 1968, the Fish and Wildlife Division lifted the ban on hunting bears in the Swan Hills. The government authorities felt that these creatures could now be safely harvested.
Eight years later it was delivered like this, "This action was premature, since the government does not have sufficiently reliable information [an old story to be sure] on the size and dynamics of the grizzly bear populations in the Swan Hills" (Western Swan Hills- Alberta's forgotten wilderness, published jointly by the Alberta Wilderness Association and the Edmonton Chapter of the National & Provincial Parks Association of Canada, 1976).
Population Estimates:
"His" [grizzly bears] later numbers appear to have been overestimated, and he was gone before anyone believed it" (David E. Brown).
Estimating grizzly numbers is almost always an extremely inefficient science. Why don't we start examining our own population density? Giving shaky estimations is, in fact, so serious that it actually goes to court sometimes. In 1995, it happened in the United States. A little victory was won as some misleading government data was challenged. The Sierra Legal Defense Fund on behalf of twenty conservation groups and individuals delivered it.
"The judge ruled that the science used in estimating bear numbers was flawed and unreliable. Conservationists have contended that this science consistently over estimates grizzly bear numbers" (Recovery Plan Victory! by Tim Stevens).
Closer to home:
"A new report by a Calgary grizzly scientist says many more female bears may be killed each year in B.C. than are reported, and that could have a serious impact on the species' survival" (Vancouver Sun, July 13, 2001).
Playing with numbers? In this way, seemingly precise and definitive data can be given. Flashy government calculations often look pretty good, but in reality: paper-thin stuff!
1958:
While questionable data is tossed around liberally, excellent, historic documentation has a way of finding the attic.
In 1958, John Stelfox (game biologist) produced a report, The Swan Hills, Wildlife vs. Petroleum vs. Timber. (It is an unpublished document. I was lucky to receive a copy of it.) It was intended to show how industry was affecting the Swan Hills grizzly bears and what might be done about it. Surely, it too, had an effect on the 1958 bear-ban. He wrote, "This area has now been invaded by oil interests and is enclosed in as new pulpwood lease. The grizzly population could be seriously reduced and possibly exterminated as a direct result of these two industries. In the interests of true wildlife management it is hoped that immediate action can be taken to protect and preserve this population." And that was in 1958!
Mr. Stelfox further stated, "The summit of the Swan Hills should be considered as a future Provincial Park or Game Sanctuary."
"The Summit area provides perhaps the best grizzly range in the entire Swan Hills region and if these proposed 10 twps are reserved as a park or game sanctuary, injury to the grizzlies and their range will be kept to a minimum."
"The perimeter of the hills has an elevation of 3000 feet while the summit is over 4000 feet. The shoulders of the hills are glaciated while the summit is unglaciated. Because the rock composition differs from that of surrounding areas, peculiar ore and floral varieties are to be found. The summit is park like in appearance and offers a grand view..."
Here again, we can plainly see that appropriate conservation measures should have been forthcoming. Many people said it, but it never really happened. There's gold in them there hills!
Grizzly Encounter:
The grizzly stories continue. This one is from the nineteen-forties or fifties. From Echoes of Fort Assiniboine and District.
"Bears were plentiful in that country. One time when Jock was trapping beaver when the weather was still cold, even though the snow was melting, he was lucky if he got the beaver from the traps before the bears did. This time when attending the traps, he saw a huge grizzly coming down the hill towards him. Jock's hands were cold and numb, as he didn't have very good circulation anymore. Somehow with great effort he put a shell in his gun. The only advantage he had was [the gun wasn't an advantage?] the bear was coming down and for that reason, a bear cannot travel down as fast as he can going up a hill. Jock's life was spared by shooting and killing the grizzly with the first shot "
Like gorillas, brown bears will sometimes charge an intruder. It is usually just a threatening gesture.
Another gone:
Singling out another shiny nugget, "In May of 1957, at the number 7 Swanson lumber camp, approximately 16 miles south of the present site of the town of Slave Lake, another enormous male grizzly was illegally shot. The skull of this bear is in the possession of the University of Alberta and would rank as number five or six among the all-time record skulls of grizzly bears in North America" (Western Swan Hills, 1976).
The area of the kill was in close proximity to that of the 1944 and 1953 record bears. This is a place where grizzlies frequently traveled, descending from higher ground to feed on the abundant vegetation.
Rabies:
Between 1952 and 1956, the Department of Lands and Forests (and idiots) attempted to control rabies by dolling out 1080 and strychnine by the "bucket full" to anyone who would set the poison baits. Trappers were paid to participate in the program. Monty Elford claims that it reduced the grizzly population by half. Elford recalls that "almost every square mile of the hills was covered by veteran trappers who poisoned extensively. Although baits were disseminated in winter, no efforts were made to recover them and the bears fell pray to the toxic agents when they emerged from hibernation in the spring" (Pia L. Nielsen, 1975).
Apparently, this type of grotesque practice was fairly common in those days, bottom of the barrel wildlife management at its worst. Who was brainstorming this stuff? Try to imagine the overall toll it would have on the entire ecosystem? Staggering to say the least. Anyone with even minimal common sense should have spotted that it was completely destructive. And what about the long-term effects?
Virginia Hills:
"One old male was killed in the Virginia Hills area [1958] when he could not be induced to leave a site where a contractor had his wife and two young children living with him. More than nine feet tall, he was reputed to be the forth largest grizzly ever recorded in North America" (The Treasure Seekers, Philip Smith).
Referring to the bears, here's another line from the same book. I love this one: "God damn it, they're all over the place."
Archival:
I sought some of my info at the provincial archives. I found a number of interesting documents. To my surprise there was even a letter by the famed Dr. E. Raymond Hall inquiring about the Swan Hills grizzlies.
There was a letter dated Jan 11, 1971. It came from a person at the University of Calgary, addressing a government biologist in Edmonton. Seeking info on the Swan Hills grizzlies: "My purpose is first to learn more about the status of this population and second to organize public support for the preservation of these animals and their habitat. I am well aware of the efforts that the Wildlife Branch has made for the conservation of these animals. I am also aware of the lack of public support and involvement for this concern, particularly on the part of the university people." It went on to ask a few questions, then finished with: "I hope that it will eventually help to create public concern for this issue." Dream on pal.
What happened? As I plod along, these are the key tidbits that keep me intrigued. Subtly, all concern for the Swan Hills has faded over time.
Boreal Grizzly:
As far as I can see, there is only one, semi-up-to-date, decent research paper regarding the Swan Hills grizzlies, Ecological Studies of the Boreal Forest Grizzly Bear, J.A. Nagy and R.H. Russell, 1977. It looks at black bears and grizzlies. Grizzlies are regarded as a "general boreal forest ecotype." I will attempt to point out a few interesting facts from this report.
"However, they [grizzly size] were considerably less than those reported for Swan Hills by Oeming."
Here, strangely, it almost seems to be downplaying the size issue, as if stubbornly ignoring the frequent legends of the place. This is odd because there is more than enough evidence to support the fact that grizzlies did often grow to an above average size in the Swan Hills. In fact, they were rather enormous in some cases. But this study concentrated only on the most heavily developed portion of the area, the town of Swan Hills and surrounding oil fields. Also, the Swan Hills was already fairly abused by this point in time.
It also states that a female grizzly bear was sexually active at the young age of 3.5 yrs. "The occurrence of a young sexually active female on the Swan Hills study area suggests either excellent habitat conditions and/or an over-harvested population."
"Food items found in scats included herbaceous material (Trifolium sp. and Heracleum lanatum and unidentified material); monocats (grasses and sedges); Equisetum sp.; insects (ants and beetles); berries Vaccinium sp. And Nibes sp.) and bait."
"The major portion of grizzly bear diets consists of herbaceous material Equisetum sp. and monocats in 1977. Although berries registered as an important value of 99.2% during September-October in 1976, they occurred only in trace amounts during that period in 1977. We attribute the dramatic decline in berry consumption in 1977 to a crop failure it, i.e. production of blueberries and huckleberries on the study area."
It then goes on to discuss how sweat clover (reclamation by oil companies) substituted berries as a food source in late 1977. For bears, outside of a delicious rotting carcass, nothing can, or should, replace fat-giving berries.
Then, it gets interesting."Small mammals (particularly ground squirrels), legume roots and bulbs were notable for their absence."(Ground squirrels are known to be important pre-denning food items for grizzlies in other parts of North America.)
"...Swan Hills is the only known grizzly range where ground squirrels are not found (Banfield, 1973)."
"In addition, no other evidence of predation has been observed in scats collected to date. The apparent lack of roots and bulbs cannot be explained. The apparent marked differences in food habits of the Swan Hills grizzly compared with other populations suggests that further food habit studies be undertaken. Such work is needed in order to define habitat requirements to assist in the preservation of this ecotype."
As far as I can see, there has never been a follow-up to this prudent suggestion.
"Three grizzlies and a minimum of two black bears have been shot at or near the dump since 1975. In addition, eight grizzlies have either been shot near or removed from the town-site of Swan Hills by Fish and Wildlife officers since 1972. It is quite probable that the dump is a major attractant to bears." (Some of this stuff is just makes me laugh.)
"Under reclamation laws, oil companies are required to re-seed road and pipeline right of ways and well sites to prevent erosion. A grass, sweet clover mixture is commonly used."
The bears developed quite a taste for this salad and dined on it repeatedly when berries were not abundant. It refers to this type of reclamation as "improved habitat". (I'm not sure it was their choice to use such a term.) Anyway, the very notion that habitat can be "improved" is a direct slap in the face to anyone with half a brain. It's like poking someone in the eye and calling it "improved vision."
"The improvement of habitat conditions may be a factor contributing to expansion of the black bear population in the Swan Hills, a region not considered to be prime black bear habitat" (Kemp pers. Comm.).
This is interesting because, as far as I know, the Swan Hills was an excellent habitat for black bears too. In fact, they have always been greatly abundant here. Throughout the years, numerous accounts of black bears are given.
Let's stop for a moment and examine another report, Constraints of Herbivory by Grizzly Bears: Karyn D. Rode, Charles T. Robbins and Lisa A. Shipley, 2001. "For resource management agencies to actively use white clover or other forbs to improve grizzly bear habitat, bears must develop a sense of security to use these often-growing plants." If we want to feed the bears, why not encourage them to hang around the dump, or slingshot pineapples into the forest?
"...with the elimination of resident adults, and low levels of successful recruitment from surrounding areas, the grizzly bear populations have declined in the Swan Hills. Black bears present a quite different picture. Reduced inter-specific competition, "improved habitat" and high productivity have enhanced the survival of black bears in Swan Hills."
Finally, the last paragraph reads like this.
"We believe that the characteristics of the two populations of bears on the study area are mainly a result of past and present development activities in the Swan Hills. It is felt that a large number of resident grizzlies were either displaced or killed during early phases of development. With the removal of subadult males and females from the area, effective recruitment to the resident population has been low. As a result the grizzly population appears to be in state of decline. Reduced interspecific competition, "improved habitat" and high productivity have enhanced the survival of black bears. The ensuing effect has been an expansion of the black bear population."
Government Info:
A recent statement by the government of Alberta says that "During the 1970's and 1980's, populations of black bears and grizzlies responded to habitats improved by logging and other forest uses..." Is that right? Modern-day spin is everywhere. Actually, this statement is worse than spin – it is an outright lie.
More about Dumps:
Rubbish! Let's get back to rubbish. Indeed, the dump is a major attractant for bears. For a place so well known for it's grizzlies, it is almost unthinkable that the town of Swan Hills took until 1998 to finally construct an electric fence around the dump. And it's not like there isn't constant daily reminders, half the town is named grizzly this or grizzly that. The very highway running through the area is called Grizzly Trail. Next to the tourist information centre is a giant copper statue of a Swan Hills grizzly attacking a swan – oh come on! I have spoken with residents who are actually getting annoyed with the word grizzly.
Adding insult to injury, a local group called, Friends of the Grizzlies, had to spearhead a project to raise money for the above-mentioned fence. After a little arm-twisting, four companies coughed up a few thousand bucks each. The final tab was $19,500.00. If I remember correctly, most of the money was raised through private donations. You know what I'm going to say. Literally billions of dollars have been raked in through exploiting resources from the Swan Hills. The place has been sucked dry. Making the dump a no-bear-zone should have happened a long time ago. It is the least that could have been done.
With this easily accessible food source suddenly cut off: what to do? The big fuzzy animals are suddenly confused as hell and a bit desperate. One poorly dealt with problem suddenly becomes another, maybe worse. What now, you might ask?
Relocation:
Well, inform the locals of impending trouble and then ship the "problem" bears off to the Chinchaga region. Grizzlies that won't give up foraging on cheeseburgers and Rice Krispies get captured and relocated. It is of further concern to see that most of them are female. Relocating bears is costly and almost always ineffective. What's more, the Swan Hills Grizzlies are already in a vulnerable and precarious position. In short, creative and aggressive measures must be taken to ensure that they stay where they belong. It is an epic and ongoing tale of unusual wildlife management. I don't get it.
There is yet another factor. Grizzlies lurk about the town towards spring and fall when nutrition is badly needed. This makes for an even more dangerous situation when the dump is suddenly fortified. Perhaps a little more thought could have gone into this one.
Dump Facts:
From, Status of the Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Population: Has it Recovered, Should it be De-listed?, John J. Craighead. Between 1968 and 1970 open-pit dumps were shut down in Yellowstone. "Between 1969 and 1972 at least 158 grizzly bears perished." "The most immediate and obvious result of dump closures was increased bear mortality."
"These deaths represented approximately 51% of the ecosystem population mean of 309-312 bears as calculated from systematic counts for 1959-1970 (Craighead et al. 1995). The Catastrophic event not only elevated the ecosystem-wide mortality rate, but it drastically altered movement and behavior patterns of the population. Five years after the last National Park Services dump was closed, (1975) the Yellowstone grizzly bear was lifted as threatened..."
It took about fifteen years for the bears to semi-recover. Surely to God, Alberta Wildlife authorities are aware of this information.
Behavior:
One of the Swan Hills grizzly relocation attempts was actually quite funny. Bears are known to be intelligent and this confirms it for me. A four hundred and fifty-pound female grizzly was found to be sniffing and rooting about the town. She was promptly captured in a bear trap. This steely contraption had a faulty door and our big girl forced her way out. No problem, there was four other traps situated nearby. She found them all, one by one, avoiding capture. At the end of the day, there was a satisfied lady licking her lips while four traps lay empty. The baits were gone! (It has been stated often that a bear need only see something once in order to learn.) She was eventually captured with some other type of cheap, metallic, gismo and caught the first flight out of town - Chinchauga bound. Our furry friend was between twelve and fourteen years old having previously sired triplet cubs. (Grizzly triplets appear to be fairly common in the Swan Hills.)
She is a fine specimen that did not need a vacation. Grizzly bears have the lowest reproduction rate of any land mammal in North America. Scientists point out that a stable population of brown bears should include 60% females. The helicopter highway has transported many bears from Swan Hills to the Chinchaga region. It does not make sense.
Population:
There are plenty of maps showing where grizzlies still exist in North America. Have a look at the eastern edge of this range. It stretches from Wyoming to Alaska. As it passes through Alberta, a little piece juts out to the east. This is the Swan Hills. In fact, south of the Northwest Territories it represents the grizzlies' eastern most limit.
Going back to the 1950's - when the Swan Hills was still reasonably healthy - it has been estimated that about four hundred grizzlies wandered here. This is the exact number that biologists consider a minimum viable population: "...the emerging consensus is that a grizzly population must have more than 200 breeding adults to survive a century."
"Dr. Steve Herrero and Wayne McCrory have calculated that 200 breeding adults mean a total population of 400 grizzlies, since only some bears would be of breeding age at any time". (Bears: An Altitude Superguide, by Kevin Van Tighem, 1997).
It is debatable whether the pre-1950's population estimate is entirely accurate. An estimate is what it is, a shaky thing. Although certainly, at this time, there was a robust population of grizzly bears in the Swan Hills. Dr. Brian Horejsi mentions that it was definitely a "hot spot". It probably had the greatest concentration of grizzly bears in Alberta, a significant fact.
Big Ones:
Big and fat are some of the bears. Many Swan Hills grizzly bears have hit, or have come close to hitting, the one thousand pound mark. Some were probably bigger. Time and time again one of these big guys would surface.
You can call me Al:
Al Oeming trapped and weighed a grizzly in 1957 that weighed in at 830 lbs. In 1958, a massive bear was shot near a drilling camp. Known as the "King of Goose Mountain", this royal prince tipped the scales at 1000 lbs. It measured ten feet long form nose to hind paws - and what paws!
Not far from the south shore of Lesser Slave Lake sits the quaint and unassuming Kinuso museum. Inside, there is a stuffed, stiff, and mounted Swan Hills grizzly bear. For whatever reason – probably a stupid one – it was shot and killed in the spring of 1981. It ended its days at the hands of a man who looks humorously similar to W.C. Fields in a cowboy hat.
Next to the bear, on a placard, this info is given.
"Official Boone and Crocket measurements [not these guys again] made by James Laughlin. Head bone measurements are 16and1/6 inches long by 9 and 3/16 inches wide. At present, this grizzly lists 64th largest grizzly taken in the world. (The five before it have identical scores.)
Data: age19 years old Weight: (after hibernation) 892lbs/405 kg. Height: (as mounted) approximately 7 feet, 9 inches/2.3 meters Hide: 8 feet 9 inches (from tip of nose to tip of tail); 9 feet 11 inches (from paw to paw in width) Front paw pad: 83/4 inches wide Back footpad: is 113/4 inches long.
"This was not a Teddy Bear so stuffing it was no easy task. Shirley Ashley a lady taxidermist at Barrhead had quite a problem getting a form." (I hope they're talking about the bear?) "The plains grizzly form she ordered from the United States was too small. She finally ended up using a Kodiak bear form and it fit the skin perfectly" (A Sense of the Peace, Roberta Hursey, 1986).
There was a lady by the name of Vera McLaughlin who was instrumental in the forming of the Kinuso Museum. "She was the lady who had big dreams, but she became very sick; she never did see our museum open." "In the early days she said, couldn't we get one of those big plains grizzlies from the Swan Hills? The next year they got the grizzly" (Sense of the Peace).
Big Dan:
At one time, Al Oeming owned a zoo known as the Alberta Game Farm. The star attraction was a massive grizzly that hailed from the Swan Hills. Known as Big Dan, he weighed an impressive 850 lbs, and was a triplet. His two sisters accompanied him. For whatever reason, the girl-grizzlies are not mentioned very much.
Dynamite:
At one time, the Calgary Zoo incarcerated a Swan Hills grizzly bear that lived to be twenty-eight years old. Dynamite was his name. He was orphaned as a cub after his mother had been shot. Poignantly, he ended up on the doorstep of homesteader John Auckenreimer who kindly took him in. Dynamite was a wonderful pet, indulging in frequent wrestling matches with the locals. As the story goes, he eventually became too much of a massive handful and had to be given a home at the zoo.
Another Big Guy:
The ubiquitous Mr. Oeming recounts a story of an eight hundred and fifty pound grizzly dragging a trap - for a quarter mile! If I remember correctly, the reason he (Oeming) became intrigued with the Swan Hills in the first place was because of a verbose Edmonton taxidermist. Albert Wolf was his name, no kidding. Now, this Wolf-man blabbed continuously about "really big" grizzlies from the "northwest interior". Sooner or later someone would get curious.
Nutrition:
"Size is notably related to available food and the subspecies distinctions also appear to be more related to nutrition than to geographic isolation" (The Encyclopedia of Mammals, edited by Dr. David Macdonald).
Can we talk about diversity? When an ecosystem is left unscathed, it creates balanced living conditions. Start removing or altering some of it and serious problems begin to compound. "Wilderness and solitude are essential for the bears survival. The main objectives of bear management should therefore include habitat conservation, preservation of genetic diversity, minimization of human-bear contact, limitation of resource exploitation in critical bear habitats, and educating the public on bear behavior and ecology" (Brown, Grizzly and Polar Bears, Maria Pasitschniak-arts and Francis Messier).
It would be delightful to tattoo this statement on the butt of every Swan Hills grizzly bear. It goes on to say that, "more recent impacts on bears have been largely related to habitat loss, especially for grizzlies." It is especially brutal in the case of the Swan Hills when only fifty years ago, life was looking quite decent.
Food:
Two plant species exist on the eastern edge of their limit in the Swan Hills: devil's club and false-mitrewort. This type of fauna is more common to the Pacific Coast. Curiously, I examined what coastal grizzlies are eating and made a comparison.
Berries:
The rich and wonderful valleys of coastal British Columbia support some of the highest concentrations of grizzlies in Canada. For the bears, six types of plants are pivotally important here: red elderberry, currents, salmon berry, red osier dogwood, devil's club and skunk cabbage. With the exception of skunk cabbage and salmon berry, the Swan Hills yield them all. As far as the salmon berry is concerned - who needs 'em. Have a look at the berry situation in the Swan Hills.
Here's a list of berries found in the Swan Hills: devil's club, wild black current, swamp gooseberry, fly honeysuckle, pin cherry, low-bush cranberry, red elderberry, tall bilberry, trailing raspberry, blueberry, Saskatoon berry (I love these), cloudberry, crowberry, creeping wintergreen, bog cranberry, skunk current, buffalo berry, bear berry, raspberry. It is quite possible that I missed a few too.
In many respects, the Swan Hills bears resemble their coastal relatives in both size and diet. Could there be some type of connection? I thought this is probably worth at least a casual mention.
Cow Parsnip:
Bears love cow parsnip. Heracleum lanatum would be its catchy Latin name: big, gangly, kind of unattractive, a landing pad for insects. It is a member of the parsley family. Called, Puksawatik by the Cree, they use it extensively. For some bears, cow parsnip composes up to 35% of early summer diets and 6% of fall diets. Many other critters consume it too. "The Chipewyan crush the root and mix it in trap bait for bears" (Morice 1910). Young plants are fine eating and bears consume leaves and stalks in the early summer.
There is a cool little book called, Aboriginal Plant use in Canada's Northwest Boreal Forest. A bit of it jumped out at me. "Although of limited potential as a vegetable [for humans] the furanocoumarins are of great medicinal interest because they are tuberculostatic and antibacterial and are used by dermatologists to treat Vitiligo and Psoriasis. However, there is a risk with therapeutic use because when photo-activated the chemicals can cause damage to the cell's DNA" (Harborne and Baxter 1993). Aboriginal people have developed many medicinal uses for this plant.
Cow parsnip has a strong, mildly annoying odor. This means that a grizzly can smell it from a great distance, an interesting topic in itself. This type of salad is typical of what the Swan Hills bears might be eating (unless a forestry company has zapped it with pesticides). Let's not forget that grizzlies survive almost entirely on vegetation.
Smell:
"Somebody once said that, consciousness is meaningless without memory". A bear has a sense of smell many times greater than our own. This olfactory function would appear to be its primary tool for survival. Are they capable of sniffing out foods that have medicinal value? Rather than feeding them hot dogs and sweet clover, it might be prudent for humans to consider what the bears are consuming. And smell is the sense that is closest related to memory? Is a bear capable of remembering with exceptional detail? How will we ever know if we reduce these creatures to a pittance of their former glory?
Sorry, did I get off topic. Allow me to make one last point about cow parsnip. Browsing the Internet one afternoon, I found this: "Cow parsnip is sensitive to soil compaction or severe soil disturbances that may be caused by mechanical scarification or trampling." In other words, it is certainly struggling in the industrialized Swan Hills landscape.
Sweet vetch:
Sweetvetch is an attractive plant. In Latin it is called hedysarum alpinum.
This slightly ostentatious plant is vastly snacked upon by grizzlies. It is common in foothills fescue and parkland regions, as well as in the boreal forest. It grows on moist soils where burning is unlikely. (The Swan Hills represent prime growing conditions.) A member of the pea family, high in protein, easy to digest, it makes for some great foraging. Grizzly bears love nothing more than to devour its roots. Likewise, pikas and voles are fond of it too. By the way, how are voles doing in Swan Hills?
Appropriately, sweetvetch is sometimes known as bear-root. With vast industrial backwash in the Swan Hills, it's a damn good thing grizzly bears are consuming medicinal plants. After a good lunch of dioxins and furons, it wouldn't hurt to gobble up some hedysarum alpinum.
Two Hundred Plants:
"Although well known as carnivores and not capable of digesting plant fiber, grizzly bears (ursus arctos horribilis) consume over 200 species of plants and are entirely vegetarian in some ecosystems" (Constraints on Herbivory by Grizzly Bears).
Is that right? Have a good look at one of these creatures. Evolution has designed them to be perfect digging and rooting machines. Despite endless images of salmon gorging, even our big Kodiak bears mostly consume vegetable matter. Of further interest, because of an abundant food supply, they – Kodiak bears – have very small home ranges. Many of these facts make me scratch my head and say, hmm?
Veggie Food:
I have listed some plant species in the Swan Hills that represent probable bear food. Here goes: leatherleaf, American moore rush, buckbean, prostrate sedge, bedstraw, bog rosemary, bulrush, cattail, dandelion, two types of ferns (dryopteris assimilis and dryopteris phegopteris), fireweed, fowl bluegrass, northern reed grass, bluejoint grass, hedge nettle, horsetail, labrador tea, white lettuce, yellow pond lily, wild lily of the valley, mountain laurel (and Hardy), pondweed, sarsaparilla, sweet scented bedstraw, vine-peavine, willow herb, creeping wintergreen, western wood lily, wild lily of valley, western wood lily, fly agaric, goldenrod, Lapland buttercup, hairy wild rye (good name for a metal band!), tall blue lettuce, sharp-pointed wood-rush, fox sedge, browned sedge, sand sedge and beaked sedge.
Just a little taste you know. For sure, grizzlies eat some of these things.
"The soil on either side near the river (Lesser Slave R.) seems excellent sandy loom and when free of timber abounds in rich grass and peavine..." (Reverend D. M. Gordon,1879).
Bear eat Bear:
A grizzly may occasionally snack on a black bear. There are many tall tales of the Swan Hills grizzlies lumbering through the deep winter snow. "Indeed, in vegetarian-based populations (Hilderbrand et el. 1999a), males are much more carnivorous than females (Jacoby et el 1999). Could this be a clue as to why grizzlies have been spotted wallowing about in the frigid months? It would make for some interesting, if not, slightly frightening research. Again, I'm just speculating, having a little fun you know. Really, as far as I know, this type of thing doesn't happen very often.
Got It All:
Fish, bugs, plants, perhaps a black bear or two, a grizzly can easily find its seasonal needs in the Swan Hills. It is not surprising that brown bears are/were so successful here?
Plains Grizzly:
Okay, it's the moment truth. I can't stand it any longer. Hypothetically, if you were to decide on a Swan Hills vacation, a few brochures are a must. Frequently, these glossy pamphlets describe our bears as "the last of the Plains Grizzlies". This kind of information strongly implies that the Swan Hills grizzlies are a type of unique sub-species.
Before I go on, a slight diversion is necessary. It is difficult, nay, damn near impossible to discern where one species ends and another begins. The lines are simply not clear and experts will be discussing it until the end of time. For instance, a recent article states that polar bears and brown bears are so genetically similar that they are basically the same species, and on it goes.
With that, the wild and wacky world of species recognition (taxonomy) is a place that should not be traversed often, believe me. And the history of categorizing brown bears is a bizarre, confusing universe unto itself. It is a branch of science that is perhaps best left to rot in some musty old archive. Let me tell you, I walked this path for a while and it was hideous. (Don't get me wrong, I don't wish to belittle or undermine the interesting field of taxonomy, but ah...)
I nearly went cross-eyed examining all this Plains Grizzly business. But, as usual, a clear and discernible light emerges at the end of the tunnel.
Enter, once again, our old acquaintance Al Oeming. In a nutshell, he figured that the Swan Hills must have been the last refuge for a distinct breed of prairie dwelling brown bears. They could not have achieved such a large size, among other unusual attributes, in such a "poor habitat". Surely, at least some of them, must have wandered here from some other exotic location. The extirpated Plains Grizzlies seem the logical conclusion. Not bad but...
There was even some skulls measured by a certain Dr. Cameron, who concurred that, yes indeed, they did show a resemblance to the Plains grizzly bears. This research was done in the fifties or sixties I think.
Firstly, the Swan Hills do not appear to be, in any way, a "poor habitat". I have made that perfectly clear. Every indication suggests the exact opposite to be true. It was once a teeming and fecund sub-alpine landscape: a model habitat for grizzly bears.
Now, up to date scientific logic tells us that a brown bear is a brown bear no matter where it happens to be located. Like other widely dispersed creatures (including humans), they come in a wide variety of flavors. As I have already stated, even terms like "horribilis" and "grizzly" seem kind of archaic these days. Yellowstone, Yukon, Kodiak, Swan Hills, they are all basically the same.
Wow! Just like that I have crushed the dreams of all those who believe. In a split second the Plains Grizzly legend has been beaten to a pulp. Another great mystery of the universe - shattered.
Wait A Minute:
Before I shut the door completely, a few small details should be observed. The Plains Grizzly theory did not emerge from thin air. There is at least one prairie connection that begs notice.
"The Great Plains grizzly, feared and hunted, prowled in the hills [Cypress Hills] which may have been second to the Swan Hills as his last retreat" (Alberta, A Natural History, W.G. Hardy, 1967).
The Cypress Hills and the Swan Hills are remarkably similar. John Stelfox noted that the Swan Hills, "rise to an elevation of 4000 feet and are unglaciated on the summits. They are therefore similar in composition to the Cypress Hills and contain unique deposits and floral varieties."
A Hudson's Bay Company report from 1871 said this:
"Incredible numbers of grizzly bears and red deer were killed in the Cypress Hills that year of which our share of skins numbered 750 and 1500 respectively and probably the traders and Metis who were not our customers got as many more. Most of these were unprimed summer bearskins... for large numbers had been slain off horseback in a run on the prairie. Many of them were of an immense size, approaching that of a polar bear... This natural reservation of the grizzly and elk soon ceased to harbor them after the neutrality of the hills had ceased owing to our invasion".
Like the Swan Hills, the Cypress Hills are something of an island-like anomaly. They are both high elevation, cool, moist places, abundant with rivers, streams, wetlands, lodgepole pines, spruce, orchids and more. Obviously, these two sub-alpine sisters act as above average providers for grizzly bears. They are (or were) localized "hot spots". It should come as no surprise that Al Oeming would draw some comparisons, and it was a fine observation on his part. Yet, I believe his final conclusion is perhaps a bit far-fetched.
Want to learn more about grizzlies of the plains? There is a terrific book, The Grizzly in the Southwest, by David E. Brown
Corridors:
Grizzly bears need to get around. I'm talking about corridors, without them, the gene pool starts to wear pretty thin.
"Due to human-induced pressures, many brown bears (ursus arctos) are restricted to small, fragmented populations" (Servheen, 1990).
"These small isolated populations are at risk for a loss of genetic diversity and an increase in inbreeding (Wright 1977) do to population bottleneck effects and decreased gene flow" (A Comparison of Genetic Diversity in North American Brown Bears, Lisette, Waits, David Paetkau, Curtis Strobeck and Richard H. Ward).
Are the Swan Hills grizzly bears an isolated population? The Swan Hills grizzlies are completely boxed-in by human development. A few sneaky and sagacious bears might bust loose - in or out - but it would be a rare occasion to be sure. Linkages to the north, south or east would be virtually blocked off. A mere peek at the Atlas of Alberta tells the story with ease. It looks really bad. That's all I'm saying.
A zone between the Rocky Mountains and the Swan Hills would be the only way in or out, and if this is the main route then things could not look worse. Don't forget that only 2% of the foothills have been protected. For a grizzly to make this trip, it would have to gingerly tiptoe through roads, cut-lines, highways, immeasurable amounts of industrial activity, pipelines, explosions, trucks, greasy guys eating beef jerky and god knows what else. I just can't see it happening.
"In the 20 years since the grizzly bear was listed as a threatened species (in the U.S.) habitat critical to its survival has been steadily eroded, through clear-cutting, excessive forest road building, oil and gas drilling and private land development."
"Isolated populations depend on corridors. The long-term survival of isolated populations may depend on the creation of linkage zones, narrow strips of bear-friendly habitats that would restore connections between populations..."(Grizzly Bear Fact Sheet, Internet).
"The East Slope population has been identified by World Wildlife Fund as a core conservation area for brown bears (Hummel 1990), and thus our observations of lower genetic diversity among East Slope bears raise concern for the genetic health of the brown bear populations in southern Canada. Additional examination of demographic differences and differences in human influences in the NCDE (Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem) and East Slope populations is warranted. These populations may differ in historical population fluctuations due to hunting, historical and current population densities, and the density of physical barriers to migration such as roads. Examination of these factors and genetic analysis of additional samples from these ecosystems may provide important information for developing strategies to retain genetic diversity" (A Comparison of Genetic Diversity in North American Brown Bears).
If the East Slope population is not looking good, where does that leave our Swan Hills grizzlies? They have to be even worse off!
Berland River:
The Berland River area, north of Hinton, due west of the Swan Hills, represents the first stop on what might be the last existing hint of a pathetic corridor.
Walk with me people. Some fine research was completed in 1989. Here we find that "they investigated the population ecology of grizzly bears in the boreal upland ecoregion in the Berland and Little Smokey rivers area in west central Alberta [herein called the Berland area]."
"The grizzly bear population in the Berland area had a low density and was comprised primarily of adults, and was characterized by poor productivity. Density estimates (4.6 bears/100 km2) were less that one-half of those reported for other populations in Banff and Jasper National Parks (Hamer and Herrero, 1983, et al .1979) and a hunted population in the Swan Hills, Alberta" (Nagy and Russell, 1978).
"In fact, density values were among the lowest reported for populations in North America. Furthermore, we feel that this decline reflects the combined affects of long-term legal harvest, encroaching resource development activities, and habitat deterioration on the population" (Population Characteristics of Grizzly and Black Bears in West Central Alberta, J.A. Nagy, A.W.L. Hawley, M.W. Barrett and J.W. Nolan, 1989).
As far as a corridor is concerned, the above mentioned information does not exactly inspire confidence: lowest in North America? And that was in 1989. What does it look like now? (Recently, provincial authorities, in their usual Orwellian tongue, have stated that grizzly numbers are improving in this place. Whatever!)
"It has been estimated that the foothills of Alberta with reference to roads and trails has over 270,000 km giving it a road density 11 times larger than what was recommended effective habitats for grizzlies in the Flathead National Forest" (U.S. Forest Service).
"To preserve a population of 1,000 grizzly bears in the foothills of Alberta for example the government would have to set aside 22% of the foothills natural region. Yet the governments target is a mere 1.9%" (Defenders Magazine, 2001, Dawn Hanna).
More realistically, the government should set aside at least 50%. Read about it here, Conservation of Grizzly Bear populations and habitat in the northern Great Bear Rainforest, by Brian L. Horejsi and Barrie K. Gilbert, Biodiversity Journal of Life on Earth, volume 7, number 2, 2006.
"Roads probably pose the most imminent threat to grizzly habitat today..." Tim Stevens made this comment too: "Most conservation biologists consider the degree of genetic diversity found in an endangered population as a key indicator of its overall health."
"The future is not promising for the threatened Yellowstone grizzly bear population or for the three sub-populations, of which only one is currently considered viable. There is very strong evidence (Shaffer 1978, 1983; Metzgar and Bader 1992; Craighead et al 1995) that long term population persistence for grizzly bears in the northern Rockies bioregion will require a series of independently secure sub-populations distributed over the geographic region. We are far from attaining that goal..." (Status of Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Population: Has it recovered, Should it be de-listed? Craighead).
Grizzly bears cannot be restricted to isolated segments of the land. If their future is precarious in a protected park like Yellowstone, what are the chances for an unprotected population in the Swan Hills? This particular point is an excellent indicator of just how ugly the situation really is.
Pipeline:
Speaking of connectivity between the Swan Hills and the Rocky Mountains, don't tell anyone, but the Alliance Pipeline Project has been kept very quiet. Mums the word. Don't let the cat out of the bag. "The Alliance Pipeline project is one of the most under-publicized $3 billion dollar projects in the world" (An Incredible Journey, Internet). Why is such a gigantic undertaking being kept from the public eye?
This next bit is from an article entitled, Feeding the Dinosaurs: Billions in Government Handouts going to Wealthy Oil Companies.
"Now the oil industry is pressing the federal and Alberta governments for yet more handouts. Eric Newell, chief executive officer for Syncrude-a consortium owned by Exxon Shell, Gulf and other big oil firms-has already convinced Alberta Premier Ralph Klein to essentially eliminate royalties for the tar sands production-a perk worth 2.1 billion over the next eight years."
Just try and ask for a few clams to purchase a puny electric fence. How accountable are these huge, corporate, money making machines? To have enormous power and little responsibility to share info - life couldn't be better.
The Alliance Pipeline Project is yet another obstacle to an all ready hideous looking corridor.
"One can only imagine the degree of difficulty in running 24 inch pipe through the rugged foothills of the Canadian Rockies. Or the skill and equipment involved in stringing 36 and 40inch pipe through rivers, boreal forest, muskeg, bogs, and other natural obstacles" (An Incredible Journey, courtesy, Coastguard Gazette and Alliance Pipeline, Internet).
Is nature nothing more than an obstacle?
Boreal Bear Project:
Currently, there is a provincial government research project that, in part, deals with the Swan Hills grizzly bears. It is called, the Northwest Boreal Grizzly Bear Project, a five-year plan, to boldly go where no government biologist has gone before. "The Project will collect baseline information on grizzly bears, including their movements, habitat use and population densities"
What exactly is "baseline information"?
The five-year price tag is $1.3 million. The primary research area includes the Chinchaga region, Hotchkiss, and Meikle River drainage systems, and the Fontas, Naylor Hills and Hawk Hills area. To make it simpler: "The Study is focused in the Hotchkiss-Meikle-Chinchauga River area of the province."
Where is the one point three million bucks coming from? "With support from the MDFP Research Trust Fund is undertaking a five year $1.3 million project to study grizzly bears in the northwest boreal region." (Natural Resources Services-Alberta Conservation Association)
I took a peek at the MDFP and their Trust Fund.
"The MDFP (Manning Diversified Forest Products) company, located near the town of Manning (600 km northwest of Edmonton) produces dimensional softwood lumber and specialty products for domestic, U.S., and Pacific Rim customers".
"MDFP Trust Fund was established under the terms of a coniferous timber agreement signed with the province in 1993 and became fully operational during 1994/95. The key principle of the Trust Fund is to see research findings adopted by industry in their ongoing management practices."
Industry eh? Are they marking their own homework again? It would have been delightful to use this same logic when I was in school. No tests, no teachers...
Here is a few words form the project coordinator. "These are not necessarily detrimental impacts, [pressures from petroleum development, timber harvests and recreational activities] this project, in fact, doesn't focus on industrial development. Its intent is to gather information on movements and habitat requirements”. Wait a minute! Not focusing on industrial development? Keep that up and another 1.3 million bucks will magically appear.
Having myself done a little background research, the whole thing doesn't exactly have me jumping with joy. In fact, it leaves me feeling uncomfortable, squirming in my chair if you will. I found this: "Our knowledge of grizzly bear populations in this region is restricted to occasional sightings of live bears and registrations of bears killed by hunters or in self-defense. Most of this information is from areas along road and pipeline networks, and we currently know very little about movement patterns and habitat use in parts of the regions that are not readily accessible to humans. Furthermore the current estimate of 124 grizzly bears in the region (about 18% of the provincial population) has been extrapolated form data from the Swan Hills region, and has not been verified."
The Swan Hills is not the primary research area, yet estimates have been "extrapolated" from here. If that's not enough, the last piece of reliable data (Ecological Studies of the Boreal Forest Grizzly Bear, 1977) is at least twenty-five years old. Since then, the Swan Hills Waste Treatment Centre has been slapped together, huge parcels of land have been leased to forestry companies and on and on and on. There is just no way that even a rough estimate should be given. A simple "we don't know" would suffice.
Movement! There's that word again. "Movement patterns and habitat use is the primary focus of the research." Grizzly bears have been studied intricately. There is simply no reason to examine this kind of data any more. The world doesn't need another study showing movement patterns and habitat use. We are already intimately aware of this stuff. One must ask the question: Is this a legitimate study or bizarre public relations exercise?
Grizzly Park:
Look at this. "Since the programs inception [Special Places] it has been a thorn in the side of many forestry and petroleum companies. They say the program stymies natural resources development in the province" (Lakeside Leader, Nov. 22, 2000).bThanks for your honesty.
Grizzly Ridge:
Lets talk about the Grizzly Ridge Wildland Provincial Park. It is a small semi-protected area within the Swan Hills. It weighs in at one-seventh the size of Calgary. That the word "grizzly" is in it at all implies that something positive is being done for the bears? I have to wonder, why bother to "protect" such a tiny parcel of property? Is it nothing more than a patronizing sideshow?
Places like Grizzly Ridge offer little sanctuary, a sinking lifeboat in a sea of development. It's not even large enough to constitute the home range of a single adult grizzly bear. However, it does provide habitat for fifteen oil wells.
Finally, the Special Places Provincial Coordinating Committee, sites the decline of the Swan Hills grizzlies based on hunting, intense oil and gas activity and the devastating 1958 rabies program. (What about the logging business?) They also said that "grizzlies are declining based on the last report in 1995."
Development:
According to a Global Forest Watch map, the Swan Hills, and areas west to the Rocky Mountains has an "access density" that ranges from between 2.0 to 5.0 km/km2. A good chunk of it is simply 5.0 km/km2. Ooh that hurts!
"No grizzly bear population has been known to persist for an extended period of time (>3-4 generations) in areas uniformly characterized by high levels of human access, in the range of 0.50-1.0+km/km2 road densities." (Kasworm, W. and T. Manley.1991.Road and trail influences on grizzly bears and black bears in northwest Montana. International Conference on Bear Research and Management 8: 79-84.)
Nothing looks particularly promising. In the cruelest possible fashion, our grizzlies have to coexist with roads, highways, trucks, power-lines, all-terrain vehicles, pipelines, seismic activity, clear cutting, herbicide spraying, dioxins and furons, pumping and diverting of water, easy access, increasing human development, introduction of exotic species, toxic chemical leaks and more. It is a buffet of devastation. An over-exploited region-polluted and altered immeasurably. A testament to human priorities, liberally helping ourselves with little or no thought to the future. After all is said and done, the grizzly bears are wrongfully described as a "nuisance".
Protected:
I came across a little paperback entitled Back Roads of Northern Alberta. It said that, "The Swan Hills are popular for moose, deer, and bear hunting. However, the Swan Hills grizzly is a protected animal." Protected from what? This indicates the great ignorance that exists with respect to the subject.
Canadian Government:
"Canada promised the world that it would set aside refuge for vulnerable species such as the grizzly bear. Parks Canada, the federal Parks agency, has made little headway in meeting this commitment to date, at least in the heavily populated southern parts of the country. Alberta which made a similar promise, has recently set aside some small areas in grizzly habitat, but it continues to promote development in critical areas such as the West Castle Valley, the Upper Oldman and the Swan Hills" (Bears, An Altitude SuperGuide, By Kevin Van Tighem, 1999).
This gets good. Provincial and federal governments are supposed to legally represent Canadian grizzly bears. As far as the federal government is concerned, grizzly bears have been divided into forteen sharp and precise zones. I found a report dated 1991: Status Report on the Grizzly Bear, ursus arctos horribilis (COSEWIC). It spoke of "grizzly bear zones". An interesting comment was on the front cover. " These designations should be considered valid until April 1993. At that time COSEWIC plans to determine if other populations or sub-populations qualify as nationally significant and should, therefore, be considered for designation. This may result in changes to grizzly's designations." Are the Swan Hills grizzlies considered "nationally significant"? I guess not.
Now, the Swan Hills bears fall into one of these crisp and precise areas. Called the Cold Boreal Plains, this artificial zone spreads out into a long thin area, moving from southern Alberta ,encompassing the Swan Hills, north to the Yukon. It wrongly links decimated southern populations to ones in the north – that are still looking fairly robust. It is like estimating the population of Red Deer and throwing in Edmonton just for the hell of it. Bears in the Yukon are looking genetically healthy these days, why not add a few shaky and withering populations to even out the estimates? God it's diabolical!
"We [David Mattson and Troy Merrill] saw that ranges that tended to be rounder did a better job of supporting bears."
"If you've got a long, skinny range: that's more edges and more interactions with people" (Grizzlies' Survival Hinges On Specific Food Supply, by Mike Stark, Montana forum .com).
These zones are sometimes referred to as "ecological classification schemes". Depending upon the study, the boreal forest gets divided up in many different conceptual ways. Any number of these classification schemes exist. Why not simply pick the one that best suits your devious purpose?
The federal government has listed grizzly bears in the Cold Boreal Plains as "vulnerable". If the Yukon were removed from this ecological classification scheme, a new type of category might be invented: HELP! The natural world itself has distinguished the Swan Hills as a zone, or ecosystem. These grizzly bears are a distinct population and should be treated as such. Certainly it is time to draw lines, indeed!
Provincial Government:
How does the Provincial Government deal with this stuff?
Once again, depending on who's doing the research, these ecological lines are executed in many different ways. Of course the Swan Hills is never given the distinction of being its own place. Imagine if Yellowstone or Banff was being divided in such a way? And these zones are forever changing which thoroughly confuse to the public who have a right to be correctly informed. Instead, they are being deceived.
Critics sometimes liken Alberta's environmental policies to third world countries where over-exploitation is often the last resort. Are Canadians desperate? What will this beautiful province look like in the future when human populations double or triple?
Peril:
I am not the first person to discuss the desperate plight of these animals.
"...within 50 years, all but the most remote northern regions of the boreal zone will have followed the course of the long grass prairie: all that will be left will be a few small parks, probably at insufficient size to sustain far-ranging boreal species such as woodland caribou, lynx, fisher and wolverine. Cougars and grizzlies, always rare, will become extinct in the boreal regions" (David Schindler).
"Arctic / barren ground grizzly populations are probably stable. Grizzlies are declining elsewhere in Canada and will soon be restricted to protected parks and reserves as they are in the lower 48 states" (www.grizzlybear.org).
"Meanwhile, Canada's bears are feeling the effects of liberal hunting quotas, tough policies towards nuisance animals, and back country development that has fragmented habitats and isolated populations " the same combination has put the lower 48 grizzlies on the imperiled list" (National Geographic).
The Letter:
I have chosen to conclude with a letter. It is from The Alberta Report.
Bears aren't from Disneyland, RE: Cut the bears some slack (letter to the editor Nov. 16)."Vivian Stanley sounds like the typical city dweller who, when faced with the bare, true facts about bears, retreats into the Disney-land fantasy about how nice they are. We live on Highway 43 which handles 7000 vehicles per day in the middle of a farming community. Over the years we have been stalked by black bears, brown bears and grizzlies, as have our children, our friends and acquaintances. Fortune and good shots have kept us from being mauled or killed.
We have nothing in our yard to attract bears; yet this year we have had several sows with cubs come within 50 feet of our house trying to kill our dog, while our grandchildren played on the lawn. One morning this fall, two grizzlies were on the edge of our yard.” “People who live in sheltered cities and have no physical contact with the real nature of bears are hardly qualified to make a judgement call on people who are forced to deal with them on a daily basis” (Peter A. Paetkau, Valleyview, Alberta).
My comment:
I should point out that Valleyview sits on the western edge of the Swan Hills.
Bears, and other semi-threatening creatures, do not exist merely to torment and stalk us. It is an absurd proposition. Brown bears are generally reclusive animals, wisely avoiding human contact. In pristine habitats they have proven to be almost totally non-dangerous. If bears are loitering in your yard, it shows that they are probably confused and a bit desperate, attempting to survive in the last remnants of a battered landscape. Given the recent history of the Swan Hills, this is not at all surprising. The past fifty years has seen the place altered, destroyed and polluted immeasurably. This should be the major focus of attention.
Mr. Paektau is right to be concerned. I would be too. How should the good folks of Valleyview conduct themselves? For a start, it is worth noting how other bear-infested communities deal with similar issues. Smart wildlife management begins with education. Effective programs can be implemented to keep bears away from humans. Somebody in the neighborhood must start the process, it is the correct and ethical thing to do.
Also, a town like Valleyview certainly does attract bears. Does anyone have a birdfeeder? I'll bet there is a few kicking around town. Imagine what a barbecue smells like to a bear. I have been told that there are some excellent Chinese restaurants in Valleyview. Does garbage get tightly concealed? Does anybody cook dinner? I could go on all day.
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