he federal government is dooming the prairie grizzly bear to extinction without first doing its homework, conservation groups say.
"Environment Canada's main conclusion is that they're giving up on the prairie grizzly population -- they're condemning it to extinction," Jean Langlois, the Sierra Club of Canada's national campaigns director, said Tuesday.
The Sierra Club, along with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), issued a scathing condemnation of a federal report concluding that "the recovery of the grizzly bear to the Prairies is not feasible due to a lack of habitat and an inability to mitigate threats."
The grizzly bear was officially listed as gone from the Prairies in 1991.
Supplied; Agence France-Presse; Getty Images
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"This is a dismal piece of work," said Barb Cartwright, campaigns manager for the IFAW, referring to a July 2007 report by Environment Canada called Canada's Proposed Recovery Strategy for the Grizzly Bear, Prairie Population.
Although grizzlies were widespread throughout Western Canada, they disappeared from their last remaining habitat in the Cypress Hills area of Saskatchewan and Alberta around 1900.
The animal was officially listed as extirpated -- gone -- from the Prairies in 1991. The conversion of their habitat to agricultural land, human intolerance and hunting were the main reasons for their demise.
While a second population of grizzlies occupies northwestern Canada, Environment Canada says there's no point trying to bring them back to the Prairies -- especially given the "negative attitude" of farmers, ranchers and rural residents towards bears.
But the government hasn't even tried, said Langlois.
The report's conclusion is fair, say the governments of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, two of the three provinces consulted and that approved the report.
"Grizzly bears need large tracts of undisturbed, natural habitat -- but 80 per cent of the province has been turned into ranch and farmland. They haven't existed here in more than 100 years," said Shawn Burke, manager of wildlife management with Saskatchewan Environment.
The situation is no better in Manitoba, said Jim Duncan, manager of biodiversity conservation with Manitoba Conservation.
"To introduce a grizzly to Manitoba would be setting it up for failure," he said. "It wouldn't find enough to eat."
And the existence of at least one polar-grizzly bear hybrid in northern Manitoba indicates the population will somehow evolve and adapt, Duncan said.
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