On May 28, 2010, the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative joined with several partner organizations to release a major report assessing the effectiveness of the Province of Alberta's grizzly bear recovery efforts.

Alberta is at the forefront of grizzly conservation issues because it is home to the eastern extent of grizzly bear range in Canada. Unless action is taken in Alberta to reduce the factors that lead to grizzly bear decline – a growing network of industrial access roads and the deaths to bears that follow – the great bears will be pushed even farther westward into less suitable habitat.

Photo: Paul Horsley

A recently-completed state-of-the-art DNA analysis showed that there are fewer than 700 grizzly bears living in the province and in parts of the national parks. International guidelines recommend that a population of fewer than 2000 individuals be given legal protection. Although its Endangered Species Conservation Committee has recommended twice in the past eight years that grizzly bears be legally listed as “threatened”, the Alberta government has failed to provide special protection for the bears.