March 24, 2010
Monitoring land use and human activities and assessing their potential effects on grizzly bears in the Babine Watershed Monitoring Trust study area
Debbie Wellwood, RPBio, Raven Ecological Services and Johanna Pfalz, B.Sc., Eclipse GIS
Phase 1 – Preliminary analysis of road development and access and proposed framework for monitoring.
The Babine River watershed has an extensive history of land use planning that includes the establishment of numerous objectives, and strategies specific to the goal of maintaining grizzly bears. As a species of special concern, grizzly bears were given focused consideration in the development of the land use plans. In this study, we initiate monitoring for the implementation and effectiveness of land use plan strategies for grizzly bears that were specific to road development and access. This presentation provides the preliminary results and discussion for our GIS-based analyses of road development and access in the Babine Landscape Unit Plan, Nilkitkwa Landscape Unit Plan and West Babine Sustainable Resource Management Plan areas. We identify gaps in knowledge and study limitations and provide recommendations for next steps. We also propose a theoretical framework and preliminary study design to better support monitoring and assessment of the effects of land use and human activities on grizzly bears in this area.