Join the Coast to Cascades Grizzly Bear Initiative and AWARE Whistler for an evening dedicated to learning about the threatened grizzly bears of the Sea-to-Sky and the ways our recreation activities impact them.
The evening will feature Steve Rochetta, Dr. Lana Ciarniello, and Melanie Percy, who will share the latest science and insights about how many grizzly bears we have, their seasonal needs, how recreation users and infrastructure impact bears and what we can do to minimize negative impacts on both bears and people.
Join us if you are an avid recreationalist, new to the backcountry, involved in trail or recreation groups, running a recreation based business… basically if you spend time outside in the S2S this one’s for you!
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Register in advance for this webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vsp3HcVfT6OvFYjMxmds_Q
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
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About the Panel:
Dr. Lana Ciarniello
Dr. Lana Ciarniello is a Registered Professional Biologist, an Independent Research Scientist, and Co-Chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Bear Specialist’s Group’s Human-Bear Conflict Expert Team. Lana’s previous projects have included radio-collaring bears to track their use of habitats, survival and reproduction and using non-invasive data gathering methods to monitor the effects of bear viewing tourism on bears. Lana believes in science-based management of bears. She uses temporal and spatial modeling to seek to explain urban encroachment into bear habitat, natural food shortages, and human-bear conflicts in relation to grizzly and black bear biological requirements.
Steve Rochetta:
Steve Rochetta is an Ecosystem Biologist with the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Squamish Office. He has been researching grizzly bears in the Sea-to-Sky for decades. From collaring, to helicopter relocations, to tracking, Steve has done it all. Steve knows the regions grizzlies by name and is the foremost contact for understanding the impacts of development proposals on local bears.
Melanie Percy
Melanie has worked in the field of conservation biology for over 25 years, including working with national parks, provincial parks in Alberta and BC, NGO’s and for industry. Melanie began working with bears in 1998 in the Canadian Rockies, studying the spatio-temporal movement patterns of grizzly bears and black bears in developed areas of Banff National Park. She then worked as the Senior Park Ecologist in Kananaskis Country, Alberta. Melanie now works as a Protected Areas Applied Ecologist for BC Parks in Victoria and is a member of the Southwest BC Grizzly Bear Recovery Working Group. Melanie is passionate about managing protected landscapes for human-wildlife coexistence, particularly large predators including bears and wolves.