For Banff National Park, it is essential to create an environment where humans and wildlife are able to coexist. Often interactions between humans and wildlife result in conflict, yet as a national Park, Banff values the existence and biodiversity of wildlife. The park has already taken huge steps to mitigate conflict, in order to provide the best experience for their 3.5 million annual visitors (Evans, 2013). Two approaches Banff National Park has taken to promote coexistence are constructing wildlife underpasses and overpasses, and reintroducing bison to the park. With 4.5 million vehicles just passing through the park on the Trans Canada Highway, road mortality was a prominent issue (Evans, 2013). Highways, including those that are fenced, result in fragmentation of wildlife habitat, sensory disturbance, and obstruct wildlife diversity. Species are inherently part of a bigger more complex ecological system and require that …show more content…
51). The most significant attribute for carnivores were landscape variables, such as the distance to the forest, to drainage systems, the railway track, and the nearest town. The most significant attributes for ungulates were the structural factors, such as the size, openness, and noise level of the underpass. (Clevenger, 2000, p. 51) Usage rates were consistently negatively correlated to human activity. Thus even passes with the best structural and landscape attributes may still be ineffective if there is a prominent human activity. The study proposes the most effective course of action is managing human activity near underpasses, and possibly even relocating nearby foot trails. This concurs with Banff's management plan that aim to regulate human development and stricter limitations on human use in the park. (Clevenger, 2000, p.
Committee on Senate Energy and National Resources Subcommittee on National Parks. 3 June 2003: ESBCO. Mission Viejo Library., Mission Viejo, CA. 31 July 2005. http://web31.epnet.com/citation.
the idea of the wild and its importance and necessity of human interaction with the wild.
Within the moraine there are countless species of animals that will soon be displaces from their habitant. Many of the creatures are endangered or rare, for example the West Virginia White Butterfly, Jefferson Salamander, Red-shouldered Hawk, American Ginseng, and the Hooded warbler. Putting these animals in zoos, or special buildings is not the answer, because they will not have the surroundings that they are used to in the wild. Also, by building roads in the Moraine, there will be a bigger chance that these animals are run over, or hit by the incoming cars. In conclusion, we should preserve the Oak Ridges Moraine and its animals because they are endangered they can?t live in zoos, and may be killed by the urban environment.
Rubensteina, D.R., Rubensteinb, D.I., Shermana, P.W., Gavic T.A., 2006. Pleistocene Park: Does re-wilding North America represent sound conservation for the 21st century? Biological conservation 132, 232-238.
The grizzly bear trophy hunt is an issue regarding the citizens of Canada who immorally hunt and kill grizzly bears for pride, thrill, and trophy. Many people question whether this is morally acceptable as hunters kill without a conscience. Grizzly bears are vital to Canada’s environment as they are essential to maintaining a healthy ecosystem. As keystone species, they regulate prey, disperse seeds of plants,and aerate soil to maintaining forest health. Due to the vulnerability and over-hunting of grizzly bears, Pacific Wild and many other non-profit organizations, are working to protect wildlife in British Columbia, especially the grizzly bear habitat.
White tailed deer are the largest game animal in North America. This is due to their over abundance and annoyance to farmers. An average of 300000 deer are hunted down each year. A tragedy has been another 3000 are hit by cars every year. Many human efforts have been made to prevent these accidents, such as fencing and deer repellents near freeways, but many seem to think that hunting and controlling the population is the best way.
“... prairie dogs from a given area are a threat of injury to park visitors who fall into holes.” Furthermore, this evidence supports that because of prairie dogs harmful ways on the
It is early in the morning with the majestic Elk bugles in the distance. The sun kisses the tops of the peaks with the most beautiful gold, and paints the clouds rose red. Men and women who enjoy the outdoors, whether it is hunting or just hiking, help make these types of moments possible. Hunting and the ecosystem is tied closely to conservation of land and animals. The articles on “Hunting and the ecosystem” written by the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks Department (SDGFP), and “Facts and statistics on wildlife conservation” written by Roger Holmes, director of the Fish and Wildlife, touch on how hunting is important to the environment to keep a good balance in the ecosystem.
Canada is a very large country, with areas of land in various climate regions, and land regions, thus having many ecozones that differentiate from another. The most populated ecozone in Canada is the Mixedwood Plains; the ecozone we are located in, named after the mixedwood forests that are native to the area. The Mixedwood Plains is one of the smallest of the Canadian ecozones, spanning only 175 963 kilometres squared. The Mixedwood Plains is bordered by three of the great lakes on the southern side of the ecozone, and comes up along the St Lawrence river to southern Quebec, and fills the tip of Ontario. It has rolling plains and small rock formations and escarpments. The Mixedwood Plains contains over half of the Canadian population as it contains some of Canada’s largest cities, including Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Windsor. The Mixedwood Plains has a relatively temperate climate with summers ranging an average temperature of 18o c – 22oc and winters ranging from -3oc - -110c.[2] Native mammals to the ecozone are black, brown and grizzly bears, grey wolves, coyotes and foxes, raccoons, squirrels, and other small mammals. Avian species include brown sparrow, hawks, crows, cardinals and bluejays. Fish are bass, trout, carp and pike. The Mixedwood Plains is made up of about 40% water, and contains over 20% of the worlds freshwater. One of the major problems in the world today is freshwater shortage. Because we have ample supply, we don’t notice, but much of the world is short on water. There are more water resources, but one of the largest is being quickly polluted and populated by invasive species .
National Parks are the cornerstone of every country because it preserves the rich cultural and natural resources of a nation, such as Yellowstone in the United States of America. Yellowstone National Park is the World’s First National Park which brings millions of attraction each year, it is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combine and have over a thousand species of plants and animal (Yellowstone Media). However, a very important type of species has been missing in Yellowstone National Park for a very long time. Wolves, which got reintroduce back into Yellowstone National Park, should stay there because without them the ecosystem would be out of balance.
The legislation for all of Alberta’s provincial parks has a blanketing effect, that neglects key values of a distinctive and unique park, like DPP. It imposes the government of Alberta’s values broadly, without taking into account every diverse park’s specificities. It would perhaps be beneficial for the Park Management Plan that is currently being created to be more specific to the park by having a heavier emphasis on intrinsic biodiversity values to protect cotton wood trees, the birds that live near them, and to also the landscape and the bones buried below them for scientific purposes. Values like recreation that would work for other provincial parks, like Fish Creek Provincial Park in metro Calgary are, in my own experience at DPP, hurting it’s landscape and overshadowing other value that should be prioritized in the
Many people wander off the designated roads; they wind up onto private lands and can be charged with trespassing. These off-road vehicles are destroying private residence land. The owners are outraged and demand for the police to put a stop to illegal off-roading. All land owners encourage everyone to report and illegal off-roaders at WWW.Riversidesheriff.org/rove/. They say it is a disturbance and causes damage to their property. It is clear the off-roaders are not wanted or welcomed. When you drive off the designated trails, you are driving onto someone’s private land. It is important to keep in mind that if you are on someone’s land, you are trespassing and causing a disturbance. When you are driving behind houses in the desert, you need to be cautious in case a pet got loose, how would you feel if your companion got out and someone that was trespassing ran them over because they were being
They also assist in avoiding collisions between vehicles and animals, which in addition to killing or injuring wildlife may cause injury to humans and property damage. A study completed for the Virginia Department of Transportation estimated that underpasses for wildlife become cost effective, in terms of property damage, when they prevent between 2.6 and 9.2 deer-vehicle collisions per year, depending on the cost of the underpass. Approximately 300 deer crossed through the underpasses in the year the study took place (Donaldson 2005). Using a variety of techniques to monitor the crossings over the last 25 years, scientists report that 10 species of large mammals (including deer, elk, black bear, grizzly bear, mountain lion, wolf, moose, and coyote) have used the 24 crossings in Banff a total of 84,000 times as of January 2007 (Clevenger 2007) . Cost as much as 25 million dollars per bridge. Smart growth helps to protect natural habitat. Smart growth can reduce the conversion of farmland by 28%, open space by 43% and environmentally fragile lands by 80%. A study done in Florida shows that smart growth would be able to reduce wetland and floodplain loss by 20%. By using smart growth, water quality is improved by reducing 43% less runoff, and it also reduces the amount of impervious surfaces. A
Imagine a world with barren trees in overgrown fields. The only sound to be heard is the wind blowing through the tall grass. A world once full of life now lays empty do to extinction. This is the result of a world that failed to understand the importance of wildlife conservation. Why is wildlife so important? What steps need to be taken to preserve wildlife? How can one become involved in wildlife conservation? These are all important questions that need to be explored in order to help maintain the delicate ecosystem on Earth. Wildlife plays a vital role in this fragile ecosystem and without wildlife the human race would not survive.
Thesis Statement: The acceleration and diversification of human induced disturbances upon natural ecosystems during the past decades has contributed to wildlife habitat fragmentation. The changes in land use have driven wildlife managers to reconsider the benefits previously attributed to the Edge Effects on wildlife diversity.