An interprovincial team from Alberta, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Waterloo has been awarded $2 million from the Alberta government’s Innovation Program and industry partners to develop tools that will harness high-tech veterinary diagnostics, satellite-generated maps, and computer modeling to assess and predict the effects of landscape change on the health of resident grizzly bears.

“This multidisciplinary research illustrates how expertise from across the country can be brought together to protect the environment and the heritage of all Canadians,” says U of S president Peter MacKinnon. “These partnerships are an integral part of our drive to be among Canada’s top 10 research-intensive universities.”

Project leader Gordon Stenhouse is a grizzly bear specialist with Alberta Sustainable Resources Development and leader of the Foothills Model Forest Grizzly Bear Program. He heads a team of wildlife veterinarians, habitat specialists, molecular biologists, and remote sensing experts who have been working for the past six years to understand how human activity affects grizzly bear health. The project will also involve six graduate students and three summer students from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario.

“Bears are at the top of the food chain, so they make a good indicator species to assess ecosystem health,” Stenhouse said. “They also have enormous ranges, so by monitoring their health, we can assess the health of thousands of square kilometers of ecosystem.”

Grizzly bear habitat covers about one-third of Alberta, including the foothills and eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Much of this area is also prime timberland, with underlying oil, gas and coal deposits. For this reason, many of the province’s resource companies are strong supporters of the grizzly bear project, together with government agencies such as Alberta Innovation and Science.

Steven Franklin, geography professor and U of S vice-president research, leads the remote sensing portion of the project. He will develop maps that monitor changes in landscape, and detect changes that have an impact on resident grizzly bear populations. The resulting maps will allow resource managers to identify and manage key habitat areas.

The animal health portion of the project will be handled by U of S wildlife health specialist Marc Cattet, U of S stress physiologist David Janz, and University of Waterloo stress physiologist Matt Vijayan.

This part of the project will include isolating proteins that animals produce when they are under long-term stress such as that caused when food supplies are short or there is a habitat disturbance. These proteins will be used in diagnostic “protein chips,” portable tools that can quickly detect the presence of these proteins and hence the level of stress in the bears. Because these proteins are found in many species other than grizzly bears, the tools developed in this project have the potential to be applied to other wild species across Canada, particularly at-risk animals such as the woodland caribou and wolverine.

The animal health group will also develop health profiles for individual bears to measure the effects of long-term stress on outcomes such as longevity, growth, reproduction, and immune function.

The habitat mapping and health data will form the core of new geographic information system (GIS) tools that will allow resource managers to plan their activities. Eventually, software tools can be developed that will allow simulations of the effect developments such as new oil and gas wells, coal mines, or forest-harvesting operations have on the health of resident grizzly bears.

Stenhouse will handle the knowledge transfer portion of the project. This will involve providing digital files of maps and other information, as well as new GIS applications. Training will also be provided so that resource managers at government agencies and among industry partners can use the new tools to the best effect.

The Alberta Government established the Innovation Program in 2004 as a three-year, $33-million initiative to support innovative proposals developed by Alberta government departments, agencies, boards, commissions, Crown corporations and their partners.  The Innovation Program is designed to achieve government’s long-term goals for the province’s prosperity by expanding Alberta’s capacity for innovation.

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For more information, contact:

Michael Robin                                                     Fran Hanington
U of S Research Communications                        Communications and Extension
(306) 966-2427                                                  Foothills Model Forest
michael.robin@usask.ca                                      (780) 865-8330

www.usask.ca/research                                       fran.hanington@gov.ab.ca

                                                                           http://www.fmf.ca

Lynn Hutchings-Mah

Alberta Innovation and Science

(780) 415-6186

lynn.hutchings-mah@gov.ab.ca

http://www.innovation.gov.ab.ca

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