EDMONTON - Two dozen protesters gathered in front of the Edmonton headquarters of Alberta Sustainable Resource Development today to demand the ministry kill oil and gas development in the Alberta foothills rather than wolves to protect the endangered Little Smoky caribou herd.

"I'm damn angry," said Rocky Notnes, a professional outfitter and guide in the Hinton area.

"There are now three wells on the trails where I take my clients. You fly over the area these days and it looks like a pin cushion."
Environmental activist Linda Duncan with some of the two dozen people who protested the wolf kill in the Alberta foothillsView Larger Image View Larger Image
Environmental activist Linda Duncan with some of the two dozen people who protested the wolf kill in the Alberta foothills


In 2006, a team was set up by the province to protect the best remaining patches of habitat for woodland caribou, says Helene Walsh, a biologist and a member of he Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. One of the most sensitive of those areas is that occupied by the 80 members of the Little Smoky caribou herd.

"The committee has accomplished nothing," Walsh said.

Instead of protecting the area the government is killing off wolves while allowing increasing amounts of industrial activity.

A spokesman for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development defends the killing of more than 100 wolves as an effective means of protecting the Little Smoky herd.

"Our objective has been to control the predator population and the density needs to be brought down to less than six wolves per 1,000 square kilometres to allow the caribou to have good calf survival and good over-winter survival," said Dave Ealey. Right now the density is higher than that."

But the government is doing more than that while trying to balance environmental and economic interests, Ealey says. They are encouraging companies to decrease their impact on the land by measures such as different companies using the same road system instead of each company constructing and using their own roadways.

That won't work, says Linda Duncan, a lawyer and environmental activist who has run federally for the NDP. The only thing that will work is following the dictates of the federal Endangered Species Act and formulating a comprehensive plan to protect the caribou.

Walsh says that instead of doing that seismic lines are being cut throughout the area in preparation for the drilling of 50 wells. Roads are being cleared and old-growth timber which bears the lichen eaten by caribou is being cut.

As new growth replaces old growth that new growth attracts increasing numbers of deer and moose. That leads to a larger wolf population and those wolves kill off the few remaining caribou. The whole ecological balance is being thrown off-kilter, Walsh says.

jfarrell@thejournal.canwest.com

© Edmonton Journal 2008