Members of the Northern Lights Wolf Centre near Golden are in the process of establishing a Canada-wide coalition to help protect wolf habitat in the national parks of the Rockies .

Sadie Parr, interpretive guide at the centre and organizer of the Canadian Wolf Coalition, said she is looking to create a coalition of conservation groups across Canada to speak with a unified voice for wolf habitat protection in the Jasper, Kootenay, Kananaskis, Yoho, and Banff national parks in B.C. and Alberta.

“What we are trying to do is get all of the different conservation organizations, and user groups: hunters, trappers, and native groups across the country to focus on the same issues with regards to wolves and habitat protection at the same time.”

The first goal of the coalition, said Parr, is to lobby the federal government to establish 200 km buffer zones around the five national parks, creating a continuous wildlife corridor, and prohibit hunting, trapping, and motorized recreational vehicles within the zones, as well as prohibit or limit commercial development and resource extraction.

“The bottom line for any of this is habitat protection.”

“Worldwide wolves are considered an endangered species. In Canada they’re still classified as vermin. So they can still be hunted, baited, trapped, and poisoned in most provinces nearly year round without a special permit.”

“The governments of Alberta and B.C. are currently culling wild wolves in the name of caribou conservation. Any caribou conservationist will tell you it’s not wolves–they are the scapegoat–it’s loss of habitat due to oil and mining.”

She said that the purpose of the coalition is not only aimed at protecting wolves.

By protecting wolves, she said, we will be protecting many other animals that depend on wolves.

Parr said that wolves are a keystone species, providing a balance within ecosystems as a top predator. When a keystone species like the wolf dwindles, an increase in the ungulate population can cause serious damage to the ecosystem.

“Once [wolves] are removed or [populations dwindle] everything else becomes unbalanced. So there is a whole cascade effect that’s observed. We see a huge change in the ungulate population. So deer and elk numbers go up, which means they over graze and over browse. They also eat all of the riverside trees: aspen, willow and cottonwood. When that goes down the vegetation is hugely affected, which is food for a lot of other species, but very importantly beavers will eat mature aspen and willow trees, so they suffer. Beavers’ dams are affected, we lose wetlands, marshes and ponds, affecting song birds. So everything is triggered.”

“When we lose wolves we lose all bio-diversity.”

“The number one loss of wolves or decline is loss of habitat. Without habitat there is no wildlife.”

She said they have a petition that went out August 3 with more than 1000 signatures from Canadians and 1000 international.

Parr said that establishing a 200 km buffer zone around the parks will be a difficult task.

“We recognize that that is going to be very hard to accomplish, because all the areas surrounding the national parks are being mined. If it’s not prevented we’re asking at the very least to establish more severe stewardship laws in terms of deactivating roads once they are not being used and things of that nature.”

“Parks Canada has said that the pressures of those industries surrounding the parks are the greatest threat to maintaining their integrity right now.”

“This is going to take a long time to establish. It is a big goal.”

“I honestly believe that this is the responsibility of humanity to make

decisions like this so we can maintain top predators.”

Shelley Black, co-owner of the wolf centre said, we have about 70 wolves within our national parks.

Kootenay-Columbia MP Jim Abbott, recently visited the centre to discuss the buffer zone issue with Parr, and said the information he was provided was “very interesting and very compelling.”

He said he was interested in receiving their information, but had concerns.

“I would like to understand for example where they see the wolf fitting together with the caribou, which is really on the point of extinction in the Rockies, Selkirk and Monashees. Where does the wolf as a prey animal fit into to that picture.”

“So I’ve committed that on October 15...that I will sit down and try and take a look at the material they have.”

“It’s fine for you to be educating me, and giving me the information. I’m not committing that I’m accepting it or rejecting it. I’m just receiving the information at this point. But what you’re going to have to do is realize that in 2008 the way that politics works is that any politician who allows themself to be more than a couple of steps ahead of where people want to go is probably a politician who is going to fail, or certainly isn’t connected with the constituents. People are prepared to take some leadership, but at the end of the day that politician better be reflecting the will of the people or the politician isn’t going to be keeping their job for an extended period of time.”

“That was the message I gave to them.”

“It was very interesting... and their story is absolutely compelling and my intention is to follow up with them, but as I say there has to be a broader acceptance by the population at large: hunters, back country enthusiasts, and citizens who just enjoy going for a walk.”

“I’m aggressively encouraging them to continue their education, and get more people educated, and see if there is an acceptance of that.”

“I’m not suggesting that the information they gave me is questionable, I’m not. I’m sure the information that they gave me is absolutely sound, but if you’re going to do any kind of public policy, you have to do public policy on the basis of the acceptance of the population at large, or your public policy is going to fail, and that’s basically what my message in return was to them.”

Parr said she circulated a petition which she gave to Abbott with about 2,000 signatures. Half of which were from the area and the other half from national and international areas.

For more information visit the coalitions new website at

www.canadianwolfcoalition.com for more information.