KCP offers a webinar series each year to facilitate the sharing of technical resources among partners and others so that local conservation activities consider the best available information and practices. The 2024 webinar series will be hosted in partnership with the Columbia Mountains Institute of Applied Ecology (CMI) and will present season 8 of CREDtalks on the theme of “Wildlife Corridors and Ecological Connectivity”.
KCP 2024 Winter Webinar Series — “Wildlife Corridors and Ecological Connectivity” in partnership with the CMI CREDtalks season 8. On Thursdays starting January 18!
Ecological connectivity, defined as the unimpeded movement of species and the flow of natural processes through a landscape, is essential to maintaining and restoring healthy wildlife populations, protecting biodiversity, and developing climate resilience in a changing world. Whether it’s having enough room to roam for finding food, mates, and a safe space to call home, different species have different requirements for travel. Current research and knowledge of wildlife movement underscores the importance of connected high-quality habitats in working landscapes between protected and conserved lands as well as safe passage through private lands in valley bottoms managed with wildlife-friendly practices and strategies. In this webinar series, wildlife corridors and ecological connectivity will be discussed from different perspectives that provide a wide view that can inform conservation of connected and resilient landscapes in the Columbia Basin. We’ll explore corridors and connectivity through the lenses of wildlife biology and landscape architecture; wildlife-friendly fencing; Indigenous values in forestry practices and fire management; human-wildlife coexistence; road ecology and highway crossing structures; and how connectivity is embedded in a larger context of ecological integrity and functioning ecosystems.
Thanks to the generous support of the Columbia Basin Trust and CMI, this series will be offered free of charge.
Webinar 1: Landscape connectivity from a wildlife biologist’s perspective
Landscape connectivity from a wildlife biologist’s perspective
Date: January 18, 2024 at 12 pm PT / 1 pm MT
Presenter: Dr. Michael Proctor, TransBorder Grizzly Bear Project, Kootenay Connect, IUCN Species Survival Commission
There is a global movement to recognize and conserve ecological corridors throughout the world. Connected ecosystems enhance biodiversity and increase landscape resilience to climate change. This talk explores a success story of how re-establishing and managing connectivity for grizzly bears in the trans-border region of the Creston Valley evolved into a larger initiative to create a regional network of corridors connecting valley bottoms to uplands, biodiversity hotspots, protected areas, and climate refugia benefiting wildlife and human communities in the Kootenay region. Michael will relate the local to the global while providing examples along the way including western toads, northern leopard frogs, badgers, elk, wolverines and more.
Featured Resources
Transborder Grizzly Bear Project
IUCN Species Survival Commission
Webinar 2: What is a landscape architect and how can they contribute to land use planning and wildlife habitat?
What is a landscape architect and how can they contribute to land use planning and wildlife habitat?
Date: January 25, 2024 at 12 pm PT / 1 pm MT
Presenter: Leslie Lowe is a landscape designer and owner of Beargrass Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning. Leslie has an informed, dynamic, engaged and integrated approach to any particular project and has excellent experience working with non-profit societies and coordinating with their respective governments and other stakeholders. Leslie has worked in Landscape Architecture in Canada and the U.S. since 2008 and became a licensed Landscape Architect in Montana, Connecticut and British Columbia in 2011. Leslie has a Master of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning from Utah State University.
As a Landscape Architect, Leslie weaves connections across a mosaic of land types by finding ways to strengthen wildlife habitat and repair native ecosystems within disturbed human/agricultural environments. In 2020, in partnership with biologist Marc-André Beaucher, she created a master plan for the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area (CVWMA) for the south end of the Duck Lake Nesting Area that focuses on the Frog Bear Corridor. The master plan identifies how to increase multi-species habitat connectivity through a matrix of open grasslands, wetlands, and riparian or riparian edge habitat. The master plan takes a holistic approach to give the CVWMA a toolbox of ideas to implement and creates a landscape that balances ecological and agricultural values. Leslie’s guidance includes maps, species documentation, plant lists, seed protocols, live staking procedures, and other restoration techniques.
In this talk Leslie will present ideas for what can be done at a site scale for enhancing wildlife corridors and ecological connectivity from the perspective of a landscape architect. Leslie will provide an update on the status of the CVWMA sites with specific examples of results observed for target species such as the Northern Leopard and Bobolink, as well as the significant strides that have been made in the implementation of the master plan.
Featured Resources
Beargrass Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning
Webinar 3: All Living Things: A cultural approach to reconcile First Nations stewardship rights with resource management
All Living Things: A cultural approach to reconcile First Nations stewardship rights with resource management
Date: February 1, 2024 at 12 pm PT / 1 pm MT
Presenter: Sara Deslauriers. Sara graduated with a Master of Forest Conservation from the University of Toronto, with a specific research emphasis on small mammal abundance and distribution across fragmented landscapes. Sara grew up in Montreal, and currently lives in Kimberley, where she is employed with the Ktunaxa Nation Council as a terrestrial biologist. Sara is also a Forester-in-Training and aspiring cat lady.
Consultation with First Nations is meant to provide a consensus-based shared decision-making process, yet many communities are short on capacity and time, while also inundated with industry referrals. Old growth forests are eroded, landscapes become increasingly fragmented, wildlife is disrupted, and First Nations land-use rights are degraded, along with the land itself. Through the creation of their Forestry Standards Document, the Ktunaxa Nation Council is attempting to bridge these gaps, and also address the demands of mitigating the impacts of operational forestry at a cutting permit and cutblock scale. This living document is a culturally and environmentally logical compendium of land use guidelines for operational forestry. In this talk, Sara will discuss how Ktunaxa’s approach seeks to enhance the values in the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) by reflecting the current state of the landscape and the need for conservation, connectivity, and an understanding that stewarding the land is more than a responsibility – it’s a Right.
Featured Resources
Ktunaxa Nation Council: draft Forestry Standards Document
BC Forest & Range Practices Act
Webinar 4: Integrated Fire Management Planning: Mitigating risk to the ecological integrity and function of regional connectivity corridors
Integrated Fire Management Planning: Mitigating risk to the ecological integrity and function of regional connectivity corridors
Date: February 15, 2024 at 12 pm PT / 1 pm MT
Presenter: Larry Price, Mitigation Specialist, First Nations Emergency Services Society (FNESS). Larry is a Registered Professional Forester, as well as Forest Technologist with 50 years of experience working throughout BC. Current responsibilities include working with First Nations to identify community needs and support access to funding for implementing measures that reduce wildfire risk and increase community resiliency. Over his career Larry has worked with the Provincial Government at the District, Regional and Headquarters level and for the past 12 years with FNESS.
Currently within BC at strategic, tactical, and operational levels there is a lack of collaborative all hazard risk planning. Current wildfire mitigation programs focus on project-based planning and do not take into account multi-resource planning through space and time. Wildfire prevention initiatives need to be developed with consideration for multi-resource management planning on the land base over the short (0 to 20 years) and longer-term for 7 generations (200 years +).
First Nations Emergency Services Society (FNESS) is working with First Nations to develop an integrated spatial data base and planning tools to support collaborative planning. Regional connectivity corridors have been identified as a key component for biodiversity and wildfire landscape resiliency. Integrated Fire Management (IFM) Planning provides a framework to develop and implement management strategies that will maintain or enhance the ecological integrity and function of regional connectivity corridors through space and time. This along with strategies and actions for managing a wide range of values on the natural and built environment, are necessary for creating conditions that support wildfire resiliency throughout British Columbia.
Featured Resources
First Nations Emergency Services Society
Webinar 5: Roads, roads, and more roads: The plight of animal movement in the Anthropocene
Roads, roads, and more roads: The plight of animal movement in the Anthropocene
Date: February 22, 2024 at 12 pm PT / 1 pm MT
Presenter: Tracy Lee, Director of Conservation Research, Miistakis Institute
Tracy spends a lot of time trying to figure out how we can better coexist with wildlife and natural systems. Tracy has worked at the Miistakis institute for over 25 years, and during this time has helped develop a road ecology program that encompasses research to identify where wildlife and roads intersect, identifying solutions to reduce road impacts and working to better integrate landscape connectivity into planning and policy. Tracy likes to read about evolution, nature and wildlife.
As geologists debate if we are in a new epoch due to human activity on the planet, the Anthropocene, and biologists consider if we are experiencing the 6th greatest extinction, do we really have time to think about roads and wildlife? Roads are ubiquitous on the landscape, and are essential to human wellbeing, and yet for most other non-human inhabitants on the planet roads are bad news. It is therefore important that we understand how roads impact wildlife, and that we identify solutions to address these impacts if we want to maintain biodiversity.
Tracy will review several road ecology research initiatives lead by the Miistakis Institute to identity where wildlife cross roads, from pronghorn to wood frogs. But knowing where animals cross is only a small component of reducing road impacts – we also need to invest in solutions. Here, we will explore efforts to build social capital around road mitigation, and better integrate road and landscape connectivity concerns into transportation planning and policy.
Featured Resources
Webinar 6: A global overview of wildlife crossings – examples of maintaining functional connectivity across roads for a variety of species
A global overview of wildlife crossings – examples of maintaining functional connectivity across roads for a variety of species
Date: February 29, 2024 at 12 pm PT / 1 pm MT
Presenter: Rob Ament, M.Sc. Biological Sciences, is a Senior Conservationist at the Center for Large Landscape Conservation. He is a member of the IUCN’s Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group and under its auspices is the co-chair of its Transport Working Group and its Asian elephant Transport Working Group. He has been active in road ecology research, policy and implementation for 25 years, both in North America and internationally.
Rob will show how different countries on six continents are all tackling the common issue of making roads more permeable and less lethal for wildlife. He will cover a variety of taxa that are the focus of the crossing designs, from arboreal primates, large herbivores, and meso-carnivores to birds and reptiles. Viewers may find it interesting to see how crossing designs change among different cultures and environments.
Featured Resources
Centre for Large Landscape Conservation
IUCN Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group
Asian Elephant Specialist Group (AsESG)
Webinar 7 – The trappings of success: the critical role of social carrying capacity in fostering long-term human-grizzly bear coexistence promoting safe and functioning wildlife corridors
Dr. Michelle McLellan’s main research interest is the studying population dynamics of recovering and threatened large mammal populations. She works with the Wildlife Science Centre (WSC) to understand the implications of policy and recovery actions on populations and predator-prey dynamics. She also currently supports Okanagan Nation Alliance in their efforts to restore ecosystems and connectivity in their territory. Prior to this work she was the co-director of the Southwest BC grizzly bear project focusing on population recovery, habitat selection, and interpopulation connectivity.
Dr. Lana Ciarniello is an independent scientist who has conducted research on American black bears and grizzly bears since 1993. She is currently the Principal Investigator for the Orphaned Grizzly Bear Rewilding Project, which is the only rehabilitation and release program for grizzly bears in North America. Lana believes in science-based management of bears to support human-bear coexistence. Her research interests focus on the interaction of humans and bears, particularly related to urban expansion and the recovery of listed populations.
The trappings of success: the critical role of social carrying capacity in fostering long-term human-grizzly bear coexistence promoting safe and functioning wildlife corridors
March 14, 2024 at 12 pm PT / 1 pm MT
Presenters
Lana Ciarniello, Human-Bear Conflict Expert Team Co-Chair, IUCN SSC BSG and North American Bear Expert Team, IUCN SSG BSG
Michelle McLellan, North American Bear Expert Team, IUCN SSG BSG
Wildlife corridors are more secure when human-wildlife conflicts can be reduced. Biologists Dr. Lana Ciarniello and Dr. Michelle McLellan, both with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Bear Specialist Group, will examine the success of coexistence strategies in an agricultural community that is critical to the recovery of southwest BC’s five threatened grizzly bear populations, Pemberton Meadows. Bears are needed to gradually and naturally augment the adjacent small and struggling populations, highlighting the importance of using a multi-scaled approach that includes connectivity and long-term coexistence. They will discuss seasonal resource selection function models they developed to predict connectivity among core habitat and populations and on-site evaluations to identify corridors allowing bears to naturally move across the Meadow. They will explain how the corridor design was supported by proactive Bear Smart management that fosters human-bear coexistence as an antidote to habitat fragmentation by managing the “ecological traps.”
This talk will also discuss the critical role that social carrying capacity plays in grizzly bear recovery and the importance of preventing or resolving conflicts before residence tolerance for bears declines.
Featured Resources
Webinar 8: Context matters – landscape connectivity and ecological integrity
Context matters: landscape connectivity and ecological integrity
Date: March 21, 2024 at 12 pm PT / 1 pm MT
Presenter: Justina Ray, Wildlife Conservation Society Canada.
Dr. Justina Ray has been President and Senior Scientist of Wildlife Conservation Society Canada since its incorporation in 2004. In addition to overseeing the operations of WCS Canada, Justina is involved in research and policy activities associated with land use planning and large mammal conservation in northern landscapes. Justina has been appointed to numerous government advisory panels related to policy development for species at risk and land use planning in Ontario and Canada. She was the co-chair of the Terrestrial Mammals Subcommittee of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) from 2009-2017 and is currently a member of the IUCN Taskforce on Biodiversity and Protected Areas.