Access management for wildlife conservation

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Industrial development for oil and gas extraction, mining, and timber harvest has resulted in extensive road construction in western Alberta. Roads and human use of roads is known to influence the distribution, movement, and mortality of sensitive wildlife species including elk, wolves, and grizzly bears. Gated management of recreational access to roads has been proposed to mitigate the effects of industrial development on indigenous wildlife. We propose an experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of gated access management of roads on wildlife on the east slopes of SW Alberta. We will use a repeated before-after-control-intervention (BACI) study design and global positioning system (GPS) radiotelemetry to monitor movements, habitat use, and mortality of elk, wolves, and grizzly bears. We will use newly developed statistical methods in a GIS to map the influences of access management on the distribution and movement of wildlife, and to identify localities that should be managed as movement corridors. We will evaluate the relations between habitat selection and components of fitness and how these are modified by roads and access management. We will develop spatially structured predator-prey models (elk/wolves & bears) that allow us to identify the effect of roads and access management on predator-prey interactions. Our research will evaluate cost-effective methods that can allow persistence of sensitive wildlife in the face of industrial development.