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

阿尔伯塔的油砂储量是加拿大的重要资源，具有战略性的国际价值。然而，人们对阿尔伯塔的油砂提出了许多环境问题，包括污染、栖息地丧失和破碎以及对生物多样性和野生动物的威胁。这包括国家濒危物种，如木材野牛。虽然现有的油砂开发与现存的野生木野牛种群不重叠，但拟议中的木布法罗国家公园以南的油砂开发与罗纳德湖附近的一小群（约200只动物）木野牛的一部分重叠。有关牛群如何应对油砂勘探和开发的更详细信息将为缓解和复垦计划提供信息，从而最大限度地减少对牛群的负面影响。罗纳德湖牛群与我们的两个工业合作伙伴泰克资源有限公司和壳牌加拿大有限公司的油砂租赁重叠。与我们的工业合作伙伴和罗纳德湖野牛牧群技术团队的其他成员（省和联邦政府以及原住民或原住民社区）一起，我们已经确定了牧群在长期管理和可持续性方面的几个关键知识差距，以及具体的缓解和开垦做法。我们将通过为期4年的NSERC-CRD研究的罗纳德湖木材野牛群，重点是更好地了解牛群的栖息地和空间利用模式，人为和自然干扰的行为反应，以及栖息地供应和捕食的人口动态来解决这些需求。这项工作的科学发现将用于帮助指导牛群的管理，并更广泛地填补罗纳德湖野牛牛群技术小组确定的知识空白。

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.