| The Western Canadian prairie used to be a vast, unbroken landscape that was home to not only millions of bison but also grizzly bears and wolves.
Now the prairie ecosystem is one of the most threatened in Canada. The large predators are long gone and many of animals that remain on the prairie such as burrowing owls or ferruginous hawks are endangered or threatened. Native prairie now only exists in fragmented areas.
Hundreds of conservationists from across Canada and the U.S. will be meeting in Calgary from February 26 to 29 to discuss how to preserve what remains of the prairie ecosystem at a conference called Keeping the Wild in the West.
Cleve Wershler, a Calgary environmental consultant who helped organize the conference, says at least two-thirds of Alberta’s native prairie has been cultivated and what remains is increasingly threatened by oil and gas development and other industrial activity.
"It was once an endless kind of landscape. You don’t get that anymore," he says.
However, Alberta does have a few fairly large areas of native prairie that could be preserved south of the Cypress Hills in the Sage Creek-Lost River area, in the Milk River drainage basin and in areas near Hanna, says Wershler.
"What we’re trying to focus on at this conference is to have a look at which large units are left and what kinds of things we can do to preserve… or re-create what the ecosystem used to be like," he says. "Any (area) that’s continuous and large has a better chance of safeguarding habitat and species."
Richard Quinlan, a regional species-at-risk biologist with Alberta Fish and Wildlife says the Milk River drainage basin has more species at risk than any other area in the province – 40 different species – and it’s crucial to preserve the native prairie that exists in the area.
The province is currently studying the feasibility of building a dam on the Milk River that would allow farmers in the area to irrigate their land. Quinlan is concerned about the destructive impact of the dam on the existing native prairie. He also worries that as ranchers grapple with the impacts of the mad cow crisis, they may have to consider other options like cultivating pastureland, and he shares Wershler’s concern about increasing oil and gas development in important areas.
Wershler says the province isn’t adequately regulating oil and gas activity in the last remaining areas of native prairie.
"We’re looking at a resource (oil and gas) that won’t be here in a few decades," says Wershler. "We don’t want to bankrupt ourselves in terms of natural history… Certainly you don’t want to restrict all oil and gas activity, but there should be some areas out of bounds."
On the positive side, Wershler says there are now more people committed to preserving the landscape than ever before, including ranchers and other landowners. He says as agriculture and ranching operations fall on hard times there may be more impetus for landowners to branch into ecotourism operations, which could preserve native prairie.
Wershler is also excited about the fact that conservationists in Canada and the U.S. are starting to look at reintroducing bison and other predators into some areas of the prairies in areas that could support them. Speakers from the World Wildlife Fund and the Predator Conservation Alliance will speak on the topic of "re-wilding" the plains at the conference.
"Right now we know there’d be a lot of opposition… but it’s something we need to talk about," says Wershler."I think it deserves our attention." |
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