Protecting the Great Bear Rainforest for Kermode Bears missapplied.

Added : Saturday, November 29th 2008 by quarksandgenes
Premier Gordon Campbell on a political tangent.

29 November 2008

The Kermode bear is a black bear with genes for blond fur that come out about ten percent of the time. The Black bear responds very well to disturbance provided it is done with consideration for riparian cover and corridors between habitats, and also berry production. The places where I implemented these guidelines in the 1980's have great bear production.

I found when I was habitat protection technician for the BC Fish and Wildlife in the 1980's covering the BC North Coast Kermode habitat that a light slash burn and limiting clear cut size with allowances for adjacent free to grow for cover and riparian buffers trimmed for wind firmness workd wonders to produce more bears.

In summary, disturbance helps Kermode bears but it must be done with ecological care so that the other values like anadromous fish and grizzly bears and furbearers are looked after as well.

Grizzly bears can handle disturbance better than we thought but they do need freedom from human disturbance because their low reproductive rate means they cannot handle poaching and road kills.

I am more concerned about coast Grizzly bears than Kermode's and also very deeply concerned about the near extinct remnant Short Faced bear genes that may exist in the Hawkesbury Island area of NW BC. We also need to do more studies to define habitat, genomics and populations of Glacier blue bears.

BC needs to apply the ecological aspects of the Forest Practices Code and enforce it by government oversight rather than let Forest Companies manage their own affairs like they have done. The Fox will never take care of the Chicken coop and that is the problem in BC. Government thinks they exist for the purpose of creating Fox Fat.

Jormawankenobe

© 2008 J. Jyrkkanen. All rights reserved.

Former Habitat Protection Technician for BCFW for the Great Bear Rainforest.