Keeping People and Wildlife Moving in the Elk Valley

Movement is a fundamental part of life in the Elk Valley. Whether it’s a bike ride after work, a trail run, or simply travelling between communities, we’re always moving. Those destinations or the movement itself are one of the reasons many of us choose to live here.

Wildlife isn’t much different. Elk, bears, deer and many other species spend their lives moving to find food, mates and seasonal habitat. Like us, they even have rush hour. Most species are busiest around dawn and dusk, while every spring and fall animals concentrate along familiar migration routes between the Rocky Mountain Trench and the Rockies.

As the valley grows, keeping both people and wildlife moving becomes more challenging. Highways, towns, mines, and recreation all influence how animals move across the landscape. At the same time, wildlife can affect us through highway collisions or the occasional conflict on a trail. Fortunately, these aren’t problems without solutions if we understand how wildlife uses the valley.

Over the past four years our team has been studying recreation around Fernie using nearly two million remote camera images and GPS-collared grizzly bears. Going into the project there were strong opinions about how recreation affects wildlife. Like most ecological questions, the answer turned out to be more nuanced.

Most species, including deer, moose and black bears, seemed to coexist surprisingly well with recreation on the trail network. Elk and grizzly bears showed the strongest responses, generally using areas around the busiest trails less often. One result I found particularly interesting was that grizzly bears still regularly travelled around Fernie, and when they did, they often used the bike trails. They typically travelled at night and didn’t linger—which, honestly, is probably in all our best interests.

Recreation is central to the culture of Fernie, and getting outside is good for both our physical and mental wellbeing. The question is how we can recreate responsibly. Concentrating the busiest trail use around communities, leaving plenty of quieter places elsewhere, and recognizing that wildlife is generally most active around dawn, dusk and overnight all help reduce our overlap with wildlife. Small changes can make a meaningful difference without changing the things that make Fernie such a great place to live.

We’re seeing the same idea play out along Highway 3. If you’ve driven east of Sparwood or west of Lundbreck recently, you’ve probably noticed long stretches of new wildlife fencing. Those fences work together with wildlife underpasses that allow animals to cross beneath the highway instead of across it. Every year hundreds of large mammals are struck by vehicles along this corridor. Our cameras are already recording hundreds of successful crossings, while collisions have dropped substantially in the fenced sections. The project is ongoing, and you’ll continue to see more wildlife-friendly infrastructure along this stretch of highway in the coming years.

One thing I’ve come to appreciate from working on these projects is that the conversation usually isn’t about choosing between people and wildlife. It’s about making enough room for both. If we continue planning for movement—through our communities, across our highways and between the valley bottom and the surrounding mountains—we have a much better chance of keeping the Elk Valley a place where both people and wildlife continue to thrive.