BRAGG CREEK— A grassroots initiative designed to educate the public on cohabitation with wildlife has received a boost in the form of a grant from the non-profit Yellowstone 2 Yukon Conservation Initiative.
Bragg Creek Wild Country is a group that first came together to address the issue of wildlife and vehicle collisions in the Bragg Creek area, said founder Renée Delorme. The group has evolved to encompass other issues animal and human community members face in the area.
“There is a relationship there,” Delorme said. “We live in a wild environment and it’s a wild country and we want to help preserve that wild country to the best of our abilities while allowing human settlement to take place.”
Bragg Creek Wild Country recently received a $4,950 grant from Y2Y to help grow its place in the community. The grant will help map wildlife movement in the Bragg Creek area.
The two groups are united by a similar mission of finding ways for wildlife and humans to co-exist and thrive. Delorme added the partnership made sense given Bragg Creek falls within the boundaries of the Y2Y corridor.
“We are a very important wildlife habitat where there is a lot of movement … Of different wildlife. There are quite a few species that are at risk and present in our area,” Delorme said. “It’s a rich habitat that is very popular with humans as well.”
Bragg Creek Wild Country member Dave Klepacki said the new wildlife mapping project is “incredibly timely” because visits to the area have been increasing exponentially. In 2020 there were 2.1 million visits to the Elbow River Water Shed and West Bragg Creek, and these numbers are expected to increase by 30 to 50 per cent in 2021.
It is a time of increasing interest in the area and being on the landscape with the natural world, Delorme said, and this initiative will help humans understand how to co-exist with wildlife in the area.
“What we don’t want, essentially, is for people to love the landscape to death and push out our neighbours,” Klepacki said.
Stakeholders in the area need to make room for wildlife as visits to the Elbow River and development in the area increase, he said, or there is a risk the animals may be driven out.
Bragg Creek Wild Country has a two-pronged approach to 2021— Establishing a baseline for wildlife population numbers in the area and communicating the information gathered with the public.
A major part of this initiative will be a citizen-driven science project that aims to unpack how wildlife lives in the area by encouraging community members to share photos and record sightings of animals.
“People are really proud of the environment and find themselves really lucky to be here,” Delorme said.
Bragg Creek Wild Country is hoping to achieve a baseline estimate of the wildlife populations, especially large mammals, in the area to understand where they live. They are also hoping to understand how the animals move from one habitat to another throughout a season.
Bragg Creek Wild Country will ask people to report wildlife sightings so they can be mapped and their movements can be understood. Klepacki noted this will be especially important to understand where they cross the road so mediation strategies can be developed to help avoid wildlife-vehicle collisions.
Klepacki said they have already begun collecting data on wildlife— This has included documenting and counting tracks in the snow over the winter to understand where animals cross the West Bragg Creek Road. They are also starting an online program to connect with the community.
“We’re going to try and get everybody to send their pictures and report their sightings,” Klepacki said. The data collected will be organized and shared online for people to better understand the wildlife population and their movements in Bragg Creek.
The group is also exploring placing trail cameras in high-traffic areas for wildlife.
The greatest challenge facing the groups is helping people in the area understand where, how and when animals move and how these factors can inform mitigating negative impacts on the environment.
The Bragg Creek area benefits from the “luxury of time,” Delorme said, and this can allow for a collective vision to form regarding what the relationship with nature will be like in the area. She added it is important to begin these plans now before big developments move into Bragg Creek and the surrounding area.
‘We need to be living in balance and respect with nature,” she said.
Bragg Creek is united in believing in the need for balance between humans and wildlife, and she hopes Bragg Creek Wild Country will help bring people together based on the same visions, desires and anxieties.
She noted every community has unique solutions to find a balance with wildlife and they are looking forward to developing individual ideas for the Bragg Creek area.
“Until we get our stakeholder buy-in we’re still be left with a lot of collisions and a lot of animal deaths,” Klepacki said.
To learn more about Bragg Creek Wild Country email [email protected] or call 403-200-9961.
