Wildlife

Wildlife in southern Alberta requires healthy, intact, and connected habitats. CPAWS SAB is focused on a landscape level approach to protection with a priority on ensuring the ecological integrity of wilderness areas are maintained so that threatened species, such as grizzly bears, have the space they need to thrive.

Current issues

Grizzly bears

The future of Alberta’s grizzly bears has been of significant concern for many Albertans for at least two decades. Recent research, summarized in the Government of Alberta’s 2010 Status of the Grizzly Bear in Alberta report, indicates that the grizzly bear population in Alberta is in dire straits. Alberta’s grizzly bear population, which occurs on both provincial and federal lands, is small (760) and becoming increasingly fragmented into even smaller population units, many of which are fewer than 100 individuals. Mortality rates are unsustainably high, and populations in many parts of Alberta are declining.

Sage Grouse

Desperate measures are needed if Canada’s most endangered wildlife species, the greater sage-grouse, is to be saved from extinction in Canada. This is the overwhelming conclusion coming from the Emergency Sage-Grouse Summit, held in Calgary, Alberta September 7-8, 2011. Just 13 male sage-grouse were recorded in Alberta in 2011, and only 35 in Saskatchewan.