Lynxes are cuter than Holiday Inns

The owners of the Castle Mountain Ski Resort in southern Alberta are forging ahead with plans to turn their small ski area in the heart of the Castle Wilderness into a year-round complex of hotels, restaurants, parking lots, roads and more than 200 private homes. Provincial officials have raised concerns about the far-reaching impacts of the expansion on the region's abundant fish and wildlife. Lynx, wolverines, sheep, elk and moose roam the Castle's windswept grasslands and old-growth pine, fir and spruce forests, which provide expansive ranges for grizzly bears, wolves and other imperiled Rocky Mountain wildlife. Yet the resort has ignored its obligation to assess the impacts of its proposal on sensitive habitat, including a protected wetlands area that sustains endangered bull trout.

The grizzly bear havens of Yellowstone, Glacier/Waterton, and Banff national parks are world famous. What is less well known is the land bridge -- including the Castle-Bighorn wildlands -- that links these sanctuaries and keeps the parks' grizzlies healthy. Grizzly bears are wide-ranging creatures. They need as much as 500 square miles for foraging and breeding in order to sustain healthy family lines. Without the grizzlies' ability to lumber along unprotected stretches of the Rockies, biologists say, the bear populations in national parks would become genetically isolated and unsustainable islands.

A similar fate would befall the wolves, wolverines and other endangered animals that also need the land bridge to remain healthy. This wilderness corridor may be the key to survival for several species, but it is almost as vulnerable as they are. The Castle Mountain Ski Resort is planning an expansion, including new houses, hotels and roads, that would intrude into the heart of the Castle Wilderness. This region is a critical feeding ground for grizzlies, as the bears come down from the mountains in search of early spring greenery, and even more so in the fall for the berry crops.

Tell the Castle Mountain Resort to halt the proposed expansion until a comprehensive environmental review has been completed and to lend its support to protection of the Castle Wilderness as a provincial wildland park.

http://www.savebiogems.org/castle/takeaction.asp?step=2&item=52826

Source: Natural Resources Defense Council