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Group lobbying for reintroduction funds

A national conservation organization is lobbying Parks Canada to commit more dollars to move ahead with the reintroduction of bison and caribou in Banff National Park in a more timely manner.

A national conservation organization is lobbying Parks Canada to commit more dollars to move ahead with the reintroduction of bison and caribou in Banff National Park in a more timely manner.

In a report on the state of parks in Canada released Monday (July 15), the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) said the programs were stalled because of budget cuts, but Parks Canada says that is not true.

“These projects remain a top priority for us,” said Rob Prosper, Parks Canada’s Ottawa-based vice-president of protected areas establishment and conservation.

“They’re dead wrong on the linkage between budget cuts and these projects being on hold. These projects are not on hold.”

In 2011, Park Canada announced a captive-rearing program for woodland caribou in partnership with the Calgary Zoo and B.C government. Banff’s remnant herd was wiped out in an avalanche in 2009 and Jasper’s herds are also declining.

Twenty-five years ago, there were 800 caribou in the Rocky Mountain national parks, but that number has dropped to less than 250 and continues to decline. Three of four herds in Jasper have dropped to critically low numbers.

The captive breeding program was promoted as a cornerstone of Parks Canada’s conservation strategy for southern mountain caribou in Canada’s national parks when announced by the federal government in 2011.

As for the other reintroduction project, plains bison used to roam freely in the area that is now Banff National Park, but disappeared in the mid-1880s. The 2010 Banff park management plan included a commitment to reintroduce bison.

According to Parks Canada, spending on the bison project, including the current and last fiscal year, has been $90,000, while $1.57 million has been spent on the caribou project in the mountain national parks since 2009-2010.

If budget cuts are not the reason for the slow progress, CPAWS says additional funding is still required to get these reintroduction projects moving forward in a timely manner.

“The reality is there hasn’t been a lot of headway on those files,” said Anne-Marie Syslak, executive director for the southern Alberta chapter of CPAWS, which does an annual review of national and provincial parks throughout Canada.

Prosper said the two projects are complicated.

“You can image a program that envisions reintroducing bison, and the logistics of a number of partnerships it takes to pull off a captive breeding program to reintroduce caribou, are very complicated,” he said.

“These are projects we want to get right and make sure we get the best bang for the buck. They are not on hold. They’re in the process of being refined and remain a priority to us.”

The CPAWS report raised concerns the $30 million budget cuts across the country in 2012 are dramatically reducing national park science capacity and research and monitoring programs.

They point to about 30 per cent of ecosystem scientist positions being declared “surplus,” jeopardizing the ability of park managers to track and report to Canadians on the state of national parks.

“CPAWS believes that these budget cuts and associated loss of ecosystem science capacity and visitor services is short-sighted given the enormous benefit our national parks bring to all Canadians,” according to the report.

Prosper said Parks continues to implement the most aggressive ecological program in the agency’s history, noting the federal agency spent $18 million last year on ecological restoration projects.

“We’re spending an average of $15 million a year on projects designed to obtain tangible conservation gains,” he said, adding there is a five-year, $75 million rotating budget.


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