Paul Paquet, a senior researcher with the Central Rockies Wolf Project and the University of Calgary, painted a bleak picture for wolves in the Bow Valley, the area especially affected by development around Banff, about 130 kilometres west of Calgary. This doesn't mean we won't have any wildlife in the Bow Valley or Banff National Park. What it comes down to is a quality of life issue for these species. They live right now in an impoverished environment, a wilderness ghetto.
Humans live in impoverished environments and sustain themselves over time, but it's poor quality.
Paquet suggested a wide range of measures that could address wildlife mortality - from reducing the speed limit to 70 kilometres per hour to burying or elevating large stretches of highway. Scientists, park officials and environmentalists spent Tuesday presenting research on the effects of the highway, the railway and human activity on animal populations. Little of it points to a happy future. Mike Gibeau, a leading grizzly bear researcher, says solutions will be hard to come by without addressing overall human-use issues. Certainly just throwing more money to build bigger crossing structures is not going to be a complete solution because we still have the problem of getting bears to live in the valley.