Lynch Creek grizzlies are endangered, according to FRNF report
By Contributor
“The Granby-Gladstone grizzly bear population and the landscape it depends on are in crisis.” That is the stark conclusion reached by well-known grizzly bear biologist, Dr. Brian Horejsi, in a report released Aug. 23 by the grass roots organization, Friends and Residents of the North Fork (FRNF).
FRNF commissioned the study to examine the potential impacts of BC Timber Sales (BCTS) proposed logging plans in the Lynch Creek North area, 28 kilometres north of Grand Forks and adjacent to Gladstone Provincial Park. BCTS has been assuring the public that their logging operations would not harm the threatened grizzly. They point to a stack of regulations and guidelines they are following, including the Kootenay Boundary Land Use Plan. Horejsi is quick to point out that the land use plan may be “legal” from a strictly technical perspective, “but it is scientifically invalid and has produced an endangered grizzly bear population”.
Horejsi also blames the “inflated, unjustified” annual allowable cut (AAC) for destroying the wildlife connectivity corridor between the Gladstone and Granby Parks. The cumulative effects of road building and extensive clear-cut logging in the corridor have severely fragmented the landscape, making any intact forest areas, like Lynch Creek North, even more critical to protect. Horejsi emphasizes the need to plan at the landscape level: “It is not sufficient nor acceptable to evaluate the potential impacts of the Lynch Creek logging and road building plan in isolation. The Granby-Gladstone landscape has experienced over half a century of escalating cumulative impacts resulting in extreme risk to safe movement by bears and an ecosystem wide and significant deterioration to overall security.”
Horejsi’s recommendation is clear: BCTS should immediately withdraw its plans to log cut blocks in the Lynch Creek North area and the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations should add the 6,000 hectare parcel of intact forest to the Gladstone Park. Anything short of that will continue to doom the grizzly to extinction.
Friends and Residents of the North Fork is a grass roots organization dedicated to protecting the forests and ecosystems in the Granby Valley to support all forest values including wildlife, fisheries, biodiversity, water, soil, recreation and timber harvesting.
https://www.facebook.com/SaveLynchCreekNorth?fref=ts
