The Progressive Conservative government of Alberta appears to be engaged in the revival of the Grizzly Bear, a dance craze of the early 1900s, and cousin to the Turkey Trot.

According to accounts of the Grizzly Bear, the dancers would cry out "It's a bear!" and then take a heavy, ungainly step to one side, with the upper body curving one way to the other, arms help up, all in an ungraceful lurching movement. The dance, which was considered vulgar in its time, is an apt metaphor for the Alberta government's handling of the conservation of grizzlies.

The province has undertaken a truly impressive process of assessment and consultation over the past decade. Numerous stakeholder groups have been involved on the government-appointed Endangered Species Conservation Committee, including representatives from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Alberta Forest Products Association and Alberta Beef Producers.

Their work was been bolstered by more detailed expert study by a government-appointed Grizzly Bear Recovery Team, which was commissioned to assess the animal's status and to produce a grizzly bear recovery plan. There have also been legislative changes, in the form of the Land Stewardship Act, that would help implement such a plan.

All this has led to a broad consensus on what needs to be done, and twice repeated recommendations from the Endangered Species Conservation Committee, that the grizzly bear be listed as a threatened species in the province, and that a recovery plan be implemented.

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.

Further information regarding this topic: Grizzly Manifesto : In Defence of the Great Bear, by Jeff Gailus