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One Grizzly. Two Grizzly...

Article from: Canadian Wildlife

In remote southwestern British Columbia - where the coastal mountains meet the interior plateau, and a half-hour drive -from the thinly populated Bridge River Valley we watch a grizzly bear grazing on the far side of Downton Lake.

This spot is a five-hour drive from Vancouver via highway and many kilometres of unpaved roads. After edging our four-wheel vehicle along a rutted and rock-strewn track cut into the mountainside, we've spotted the mammal through binoculars.

It's dusk - 9:25 p.m. in late May - and the grizzly ambles along the far bank, apparently oblivious to our presence. It's about two metres long (or tall) and maybe 350 kilograms. We note the hump rising above broad shoulders. While grizzlies are typically brown, this animal, we can clearly see, has blond on its upper body. Its nose is dished upward.

The claws, slightly curved, will be five to 10 centimetres long and lethal. Guide Richard Borthwick has seen them in action. "Grizzlies can burrow into a marmot hole in four minutes. It's like watching a big backhoe - it's not in small increments," says Borthwick, a University of Northern British Columbia student working on a study of grizzlies in these South Chilcotin Mountains with his summer employer, Chilcotin Holidays Ranch.

We've come to Downton Lake – actually a 60-kilometre-long reservoir that feeds southwest B.C.'s appetite for hydroelectricity - because, we're told, so does the reclusive Ursus arctos horribilis.

As to the number of grizzlies in this part of B.C., there's no shortage of uncorroborated opinion. In the mostly roadless wilderness, tracking and counting bears especially a species that cherishes its privacy - is no easy task. But in order to investigate and ensure the grizzly population's health and long-term survival, wildlife specialists and local businesspeople are trying to do exactly that.

While 100,000 grizzly bears are believed to have roamed North America before European settlement, there's now a relatively stable population of about 28,000 in Canada, according to the federal government. B.C. has the most - an estimated 17,000 in 2004, according to the provincial Ministry of the Environment.
The province is divided into regions, known as grizzly bear population units. The goal is to estimate the numbers in each unit and evaluate whether the particular habitat can sustain current numbers or support additional bears.

Most is known about grizzlies in the Rockies and far North. How many populate the 40,000 square kilometres of southwestern B.C. remains uncertain, says Tony Hamilton, an environment ministry wildlife biologist and carnivore specialist. Hunting is prohibited, however, because the estimate in the population units covering much of this region namely the South Chilcotin Ranges, Garibaldi Pitt, Squamish-Lillooet and Stein-Nahatlatch falls well below 50 per cent of what the habitat is capable of supporting.

The grizzly population here is formally threatened. To the east, through all of southcentral B.C., the species has been extirpated. Hamilton fears that a growing human population and its ever increasing interest in wilderness recreation, along with industrial uses such as forestry and mining, may be pushing the remaining grizzly bears into the inaccessible far west.

Chilcotin Holidays Ranch owners Kevan Bracewell, a third-generation guide-outfitter and Sylvia Waterer, a resource-management expert and director of the B.C. Wilderness Tourism Association, believe in the South Chilcotin Mountains in which they operate, the grizzlies are thriving. “Triplets are common,” Waterer says of a species that commonly produces one or two cubs. "Last year we saw a bear with four cubs. And when you see that, it's an indication that life is good". Chilcotin Holidays is best known for their four- to 10-day pack-horse trips into the desert-like mountains, and grizzly sighting trips like the one we joined

The state and viability of the habitat in that the bears live and travel concerns biologists like Hamilton. A male grizzly's home range may be 5,000 square kilometres. In the South Chilcotin, grizzlies are known to hibernate at high elevations. Come spring “ they know when there’s food out there,” says Borthwick – they descend, cubs in tow, to the valleys, streambeds and avalanche chutes to gorge on nutrient-rich greens.

By early summer, after mating, they move up the slopes in pursuit of wildflowers and grasses. By fall, they’re dining on cow parsnip on the open meadows close to the treeline. Finally to fatten up for winter, they go after protein-rich white bark pine nuts (by downing branches lined with pinecones), marmots and other small mammals.

Borthwick, who studies wildlife and fisheries at the UNBC campus in Prince George, is working with Bracewell and Waterer to advance their 13 years of documented sightings and anecdotal study of grizzly numbers and habitat. “It's really important we know where the wilderness balance is at,” he says.

Last year, Borthwick assumed management of about 100 bear hair samples that Bracewell and other ranch employees had collected from "rub trees" over four years, and then stepped up the collection. (In what is believed to be both a natural inclination to relieve itching and a subtle communication strategy, bears routinely approach a tree, stomp on the ground at its base, and rub their back against the bark. Not only do they leave their footprints and scent, but also a handful of wiry hairs embedded in the sharp, sappy bark.)

Depending on the light, I could usually see the rub trees," Borthwick says of his view from horseback while travelling with pack-horse expeditions. He'd collect a cluster of bear hair, slip it into a tiny envelope and note the time and location.

Subjected to molecular DNA and isotopic analysis, says Borthwick, the hairs should reveal the bear's type, sex and family grouping: Additional samples may help explain bear range and habits over time. It is hoped the analysis will also reveal what nutrient bears are imbibing for a better understanding of what constitute a healthy diet and habitat.

Today, with more than 700 samples, as well as 13 years of sighting records collected by Bracewell and employees of Ainsworth Lumber (the biggest licensee in the larger Lillooet Timber Supply Area), Borthwick has a solid base for study as he begins his postgraduate work. "This is a fantastic data set on wildlife because it's been collected, over such a long period," he says.

He sees the study as an example of private-public resource management approach – in this case involving tourism, forestry and public education, which the B.C. government has long been advocating. "In the end," he says, "everyone wants the bears around, so we're going to see what we can do to contribute - to a management plan that benefits everyone and that's effective."

Brad Bennett, manager of Ainsworth's plywood division which is based in Savona (near Kamloops, to the east of the Chilcotin Mountains), says that bears favour newly logged areas for their abundant berries and logging roads for ease of travel. He also concedes, though, that there are strong differences of opinion as to whether the southwestern B.C. grizzly populations are growing, stable or in. declines.

Bennett supports the Chilcotin Holidays Ranch project, among other research efforts (an Ainsworth forester also sits on a different study being conducted in the Lillooet region), because, he says, "we're both resource managers, and to do a proper job we need to have the best information we can get. All resource managers want to be seen as responsible stewards of their territory and wildlife. We need to measure and know where we are at.”

After three days in pursuit of grizzlies in the Bridge River Valley and South Chilcotin Mountains, we'd seen plenty of black bears, a few moose and a herd of mountain goats nestled along the precipitous ridges of Eldorado Mountain. We'd made five grizzly sightings of, perhaps four individual bears, all from a distance of half a kilometre.

A good thing, distance: This is not a people-friendly species. It is, however, one of our country's most independent, powerful and revered icons, one that's integral to our landscape and identity. And any effort, by the private or public sector, to further protect the grizzly and its habitat is welcome. To participate in the Grizzly study in the Chilcotin Mountains, contact Chilcotin Holidays.