Bighorn in Our Backyard - $10,000

Bighorn in Our Backyard (BIOB) is an ecosystem-based education, research and restoration project focusing on the critical winter range of the Radium-Stoddart bighorn sheep herd in and around the Village of Radium. The project’s thirty+ partners now include four levels of government, industry, and locally based interest groups and citizens some of which comprise the multi-agency Radium-Stoddart Bighorn Working Group. Blue-listed Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) are used as a flagship species for focusing on open forest and grassland ecosystems. Two primary issues that affect the Radium-Stoddart bighorns that BIOB is addressing are the loss and degradation of winter range due to human encroachment and forest ingrowth in historically fire-maintained ecosystems. Highway mortality, harassment from humans and dogs, noxious weeds and potential transmission of disease from livestock also affect bighorns in the project area.

BIOB plays a catalytic role and is active and successful in the coordination and delivery of public outreach and education, involvement of volunteers in ecosystem monitoring, multi-stakeholder planning and conducting of ecosystem research and restoration and is supportive of community-based economic returns associated with the conservation of ecosystems and wildlife. BIOB’s emphasis in the coming year will be to coordinate and maintain these activities with particular focus on the continued involvement of residents and on the facilitation of ecosystem restoration and research. BIOB’s coordination role in the above activities is essential due to the multi-stakeholder interests that apply to the project area.

A shift in program emphasis away from the Bighorn Community Monitoring Program towards the Private Land Stewards Program was implemented in the 2003-04 program period (March 4, 2004 launch) and is currently meeting with great success. To date 20 land owners have contacted us and 16 have requested site visits and stewardship consultations on their land within the BIOB Project Area. The recently released Filmon Report emphasized the need for private land owners to get involved in ecosystem restoration and fuel reduction on their property. BIOB’s Private Land Stewards Program is providing a means for private land owners to take action on behalf of public safety, ecosystem restoration and species at risk in these fire-maintained ecosystems.

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