Ecology of wood bison and their response to natural and anthropogenic disturbances in the oil sands region of northeast Alberta

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Alberta's oil sands reserves are an important resource for Canada and of strategic international value. However, numerous environmental concerns have been raised about Alberta's oil sands, including pollution, habitat loss and fragmentation, and threats to biodiversity and wildlife. This includes nationally threatened species such as wood bison. Although existing oil sands developments do not overlap with extant wild populations of wood bison, proposed oil sands developments south of Wood Buffalo National Park overlap with parts of a small (~200 animals) herd of wood bison near Ronald Lake. More detailed information of how the herd responds to oil sands exploration and development would inform mitigation and reclamation plans thus minimizing negative effects to the herd.****The Ronald Lake herd overlaps with the oil sands leases of our 2 industrial partners, Teck Resources Limited and Shell Canada Limited. Together with our industrial partners and other members of the Ronald Lake Bison Herd Technical Team (provincial and federal governments and Aboriginal or Indigenous communities), we have identified several key knowledge gaps for the herd that deal with its long-term management and sustainability, as well as specific mitigation and reclamation practices. We will address these needs through a 4-year NSERC-CRD study of the Ronald Lake wood bison herd that focus on better understanding the herd's habitat and space use patterns, behavioural responses to human-caused and natural disturbances, and population dynamics in relation to habitat supply and predation. Scientific findings from this work will be used to help guide management of the herd and more broadly to fill knowledge gaps identified by the Ronald Lake Bison Herd Technical Team.**