A Kaslo-based wildlife biologist is asking the B.C. government to look at some new data when it decides whether it will approve the controversial Jumbo Glacier Resort.
In the works for nearly two decades, the $45 million ski resort development would be built in the Jumbo Valley in the Purcell Mountains. The province is currently deciding whether to create a resort municipality at the proposed development site.
Dr. Michael Proctor has studied grizzlies in region for years, and says he’s discovered the bears in the Purcell Mountains are key to the long-term survival of the species throughout the region.
Proctor says studies he conducted in 2007 showed the number of grizzlies between Highway 1 and the U.S. border were lower than expected. Since then, he and his research team have been trying to determine the cause of the decline, tracking 3,500 of the bears across the western reaches of North America in the process.
His report now completed, Proctor says it looks like the decline in population is linked to an increase in human activity in the region’s back country.
“It’s not so uncommon,” he says.” In other areas like the Okanagan there’s hardly any bears. Same with the Lower Mainland.
“If society cares about bears, then they should consider that we’re near some human use threshold where bears are not doing so well in the back country.”
Purcell says grizzly populations in the Kaslo and Nelson area are “pretty fragmented,” and as such, highly threatened.
“They need to be linked up to a large, more secure core population. It’s a simple conservation biology dynamic,” he explains. That core population, an estimated 600 bears, is located in the Purcell Mountains.
“The Jumbo Resort happens to be smack in the middle of that population,” he says.
Proctor says a ski resort like the Jumbo aren’t necessarily harmful to bear populations. But the development required for the resort could sever the natural links the bears in the Nelson and Kaslo area have to the Purcell population.
“There’s a million little things that nip away at the bear population,” Proctor adds. “The location of Jumbo resort makes it what I call a keystone cut. It’s a cut that’s more important.”
Grizzly bears aren’t just important for their own sake, he adds. Because the animals are more sensitive to changes in their environments than other animals, they’re also helpful in measuring the overall health of animals in an area.
Proctor says he’s hopeful the B.C. government will take the research documents he’s sent them into account.
“I know that B.C. has a stated policy that they want to let their decisions be science-based,” he says, “So here’s some science.”
