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Dispatches: wildlife photographers launch action campaign

Photographers "not just going to take pictures anymore"
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Several Canadian Rockies wildlife photographers are mad as hell and they're not going to just take pictures anymore.

For the sake of the small grizzly population of Banff National Park, it's time to speak up and take action, said John Marriott.

A professional photographer since the mid-1990s, Marriott shot a series of captivating images of a momma grizzly and her cubs just 36 hours before she was struck and killed by a train on the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks east of Lake Louise, Alberta on the night of May 28/29.

Infuriated and utterly heart-broken, Marriott unleashed his frustration in his blog.

"To say that I was devastated by the news would be to understate it," he wrote. "I got the call from Parks, five hours before the news was released to the media, and spent the next 24 hours in a state of shock, dismay, and anger, wondering how this continues to happen time and time again."

It's not just that yet another valuable member of Banff's approximately 60 grizzlies, one of three breeding females making their home in the Lake Louise area, was struck and killed by the CPR train, he said, but that Parks Canada's plan is to let the cubs fend for themselves in the hopes they manage to elude predators and to survive to adulthood.

"That is the big concern-the cubs. Parks' line about just sticking to the status quo and letting nature take its course, well that's not good enough," Marriott said. "It's fine and dandy to say let nature take its course, but nature doesn't have a big train mowing down your mother when you're a baby. That is definitely man stepping into nature. Parks has a zero success rate with that strategy."

Only a year old, the two cubs weigh about 50 pounds each. Parks Canada has been monitoring their movements daily, with resource conservation officers making noises in effort to keep them away from roads, cars and the railroad tracks. The cubs are feeding themselves well, foraging for grass and feasting on abundant dandelions.

But with no orphaned cubs of that premature age proven to have survived to adulthood after losing their mothers to cars or trains in past years, it's essential, Marriott argues, that Parks develop a more active strategy for the next orphaned cubs-a situation that's inevitable.

To help spur that process, Marriott and fellow wildlife photographers Cai Priestley and Brandon T. Brown have joined forces in launching a letter writing campaign to urge Parks Canada, regional MP Blake Richards, Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent and CPR to take immediate and meaningful action to protect Canada's wildlife within the boundaries of the very national parks-and UNESCO World Heritage Site-where they are supposed to be protected.

Their Facebook page, Save Banff's Wildlife, has garnered more than 300 friends with more than 100 letters sent. They are working to attract as much regional and national attention as do their captivating photographs.

It's no coincidence, Marriott admitted, that this action comes on the heels of Canmore photographer Peter Dettling's provocative book, The Will of The Land, which related in thorough, discouraging detail the numbers of grizzlies - and many dozens of other wild animals - that die annually on the railroads and highways running through the mountain parks.

"That's one of the biggest things, to not let the momentum from Peter's book die off," Marriott said. "We need to force more and more pressure. We're aiming directly at the hearts of people."

Both CPR and Parks insist they are taking the problem seriously, with plans to announce next month some short-term actions as a result of eight months of discussions as part of a $1 million, five-year action program.

"We're very saddened to learn a bear was killed recently," said CPR spokesperson Breanne Feigel. "Reducing train speed is one of the possible solutions being considered. It's one of a whole series of things being looked at from a scientific point of view in a calculated, monitored approach. The solution isn't just to react whenever that [a railroad-caused bear death] happens, but to stay the course and work on solutions for the long-term."

With Banff's grizzly population capable of sustaining a four per cent annual mortality rate, this recent death, coupled with a male killed on the TransCanada in May bringing the 2011 count to 6.6 per cent, such statements are simply too little and too slow coming, Marriott insists.

"We've already fulfilled our quota and it's only the beginning of June," Marriott said. "Parks and CP say they're doing their part, but none of that is adequate. There are actions that can be taken immediately. The Trans Canada 70-kilometre zone needs to actually be enforced. They can slow down the train, and they can fix the grain cars-now."

While the railroad is the single biggest killer of grizzlies in the mountain parks, CP's profits for the 1999 to 2008 period were $19 billion.

"A million dollars over five years does nothing right now," Marriott said. "This is a critical time. The grizzly is listed as a threatened species in Alberta.

"This will keep happening."