Ungraceful lurching

Globe editorial on grizzly conservation in Alberta.

Given that, as biologist Mark Boyce, the Alberta Conservation Association Chair in Fisheries of the University of Alberta, says, “Well over 90 per cent of bear mortality occurs within 500 metres of a road” – the plan should include some access management, e.g., new roads built by the oil and other extraction industries in areas of bear habitat would be gated, instead of opening up huge swaths of land for recreational use.

Such a targeted measure would not be an obstacle to Alberta’s economic future, or an insurmountable political problem for its government. It is time that Alberta’s oxymoronically titled Minister of Sustainable Resource Development, Mel Knight, stopped the ungraceful lurching movements and showed some leadership.