(Source: CBC News) A new study found that grizzly bears have had to change their movements across the Canadian Rockies, becoming more constrained over time as they avoid human development like coal mines, highways, large reservoirs and towns.

Analyzing 20 years worth of GPS collar data from over 100 grizzly bears, the research, published in Conservation Science and Practice, found that humans have had a significant impact on the way bears move across an 85,000 square kilometre landscape in southern B.C. and Alberta.

“There already has been quite a bit of connectivity loss for grizzly bears in the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains,” said Eric Palm, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Montana.

Any new coal mines, towns or highway roads would create more barriers for grizzly bears to move around and find food, he said — potentially having bigger ramifications down the road.

“Since that baseline is already pretty high, any additional losses could eventually have population-level effects for grizzly bears,” he said.

In January, the province lifted a moratorium on coal mining in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, opening the door for suspended projects to resume.

More human development on the horizon — like new and resuming coal mine projects — could further threaten bear habitats, Palm said.

“In B.C. and Alberta there are a lot of proposed coal mine expansions of existing mines, and then there are also some new mines that are being proposed,” he said.

“Building new coal mines in each one of these areas … expands the footprint of human infrastructure [which] can affect connectivity by usually inhibiting animals moving from one habitat patch to another.”

Using computer simulations to predict how more development will impact bears in the future, the study found that those habitat patches would be further disconnected, restricting movement.

Palm explained that grizzly bears in the Canadian Rockies rarely venture out into the prairies, staying confined to the mountains. But there, bears are more constrained, as humans typically develop infrastructure in valley bottoms where some food sources thrive.

The researchers found that when food was scarce, both male and female bears risked coming closer to roads to search for it with forest along roadsides being home to attractive foods such as grasses, flowering plants and buffaloberries.

Tal Avgar, a wildlife ecologist and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia who contributed to the study, said a “grizzly bear that wants to live a long and happy life needs to avoid humans as much as possible.”

The most recent count in Alberta shows 235 grizzly bear mortalities were caused by humans in the period between 2013 and 2022. Most known grizzly bear deaths in the province are caused by humans.

In May, two female grizzly bears were killed by trains in separate incidents in Banff National Park. 

“Sometimes humans are associated with where the food is, but in general, we know that bears would like to avoid being close to humans. They would like to avoid being on infrastructure used by humans,” Avgar said.

“If genes are being inhibited from flowing from one area… eventually some of these populations could become more isolated from each other,” Palm speculated.

Though this study was limited in scope to the data on grizzly movements, Palm said there was room to further research the potential for new infrastructure to limit not just the bears’ mobility, but also how that could impact their breeding.

Although the threat of new development is concerning, Palm said much work is being done to help increase habitat connectivity in the Rockies, such as wildlife crossings over or under roads that help animals move across human infrastructure.

“Now there is a lot of vulnerability between different species and how much they adopt using these crossings, and sometimes these crossings are very successful, and sometimes less so,” Avgar said.

While wildlife crossings are still helpful in building habitat connections, Avgar said, that solution is limited to roads.

“There are definitely situations where we can’t actually provide those crossing structures [such as] human settlement or a mine,” he said. “We can’t build a bridge above it. It’s an area that the bears are going to avoid to some extent.

“The main thing that we need to keep in mind is that when we plan development, we want to plan it at the large landscape scale, keeping in mind that we still allow populations of animals to move across that landscape, and if we blocked one path, maybe leave other paths open for future development.”

According to B.C.’s environmental compliance and enforcement branch, Fraser Valley Renewables delivered eight truckloads of municipal organic waste from a farm in Columbia Valley, a small community east of Cultus Lake, to 59261 St Elmo Rd., near Hope, constituting “unauthorized discharge” into the environment.

The report says the company has a “lengthy history of non-compliance” and that fines have been recommended. Inspectors previously found the material included plastic, metal and some construction and demolition waste.

The company was previously fined $8,000 for dumping the waste in the Columbia Valley back in 2022, and subsequently ordered to remove it. At the time, residents feared hazardous material would leach into critical aquifers — concerns that were also shared by B.C.’s environment ministry.

“I was a little surprised there wasn’t more oversight in terms of where the material would end up,” said Darcy Henderson, a Columbia Valley resident who was part of a neighbourhood effort that fought against the illegal dumping, bringing it to the ministry’s attention.

“I’m much less satisfied to think the problem has not been solved, it’s simply been moved,” she said. “It’s not a win if it’s just a shuffle.”

Taryn Dixon, a Fraser Valley Regional District board member who represents residents from the Columbia Valley, says it’s upsetting to find out material dumped in her community was simply relocated elsewhere in the district.

“The concern of our board is that it’s like whack-a-mole,” said Dixon. “A company might get some fines or might have to move product, and it just goes to the same location and the same issues arise — people are concerned about their safety, about the water, about the environment.”

CBC News has since learned the owner of the company, Matthew Malkin, is a managing partner and principal of an affiliate company called Fraser Valley Agri Waste, which has its own history of environmental violations and fines. The Ministry of Environment fined the company $9,000 after inspectors found its organics facility was triple its allowed capacity.

The ministry has also recommended fines after inspectors reported finding liquid pollution seeping from waste piles at an Abbotsford property it says is transited by two fish-bearing streams.

However, in a statement, the City of Abbotsford said it’s aware of the issues surrounding FVAW and that it’s working with the business to ensure compliance at both its sites within the municipality.

“Ongoing monitoring by the City has confirmed the [Bates Road] site is currently operating within the permitted use parameters. A file remains open to ensure continued compliance,” a city spokesperson said in an email.

CBC News has reached out to Matthew Malkin and his affiliated companies for comment.

FVR labels itself as an organic waste conversion company. It sources its feedstock from municipalities in Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and the Okanagan, including organics, food scraps, paper products, yard waste and waxed cardboard.

B.C. Environment Ministry enforcement documents list Malkin as an owner of FVR and managing partner at FVAW. Recent court documents filed by the Bank of Nova Scotia list Malkin as the principal of FVR and FVAW.

The filing also lists Malkin as the owner of 5205 Bates Rd. in Abbotsford, the same site as FVAW’s composting facility.

In late June, the enforcement branch levied a fine against FVAW for being near triple its capacity at the site, which was said to have room for 8,000 tonnes of feedstock. The ministry found it accepted 25,637 tonnes of organic matter between April 1, 2023, and May 15, 2024.

Ministry staff said the waste increased the risk of leachate, with runoff being observed entering an adjacent agricultural field. It said the site was also within one kilometre of McLennan Creek, a fish-bearing watercourse, heightening the possibility for environmental harm.

In its report, the ministry said FVAW denied being overcapacity, but did not provide sufficient evidence to support the claim.

In 2022, ministry inspectors found that FVR dumped extensive piles of business waste onto 810 Iverson Road, a farm in Columbia Valley, and applied it to the landscape, according to their report. An Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) inspector found it included contaminants like plastic, metal and some construction and demolition waste.

It was ordered to be removed a year later, with FVR initially missing its May 2024 deadline. The material was removed in the following months.

A June 5, 2025, inspection found eight truckloads of waste were relocated to a property on St Elmo Rd. near Hope, where they were discharged without any authorization from environmental regulators. The piles weren’t contained, the report states.

“Despite being reminded at least four times in 2022 and 2024 that discharging waste into the environment required authorization under the [Environmental Management Act], FVR distributed the Waste to the Site,” wrote environmental protection officer Taryn Angus in the report, which recommended further administrative penalties.

Meanwhile, in 2024, the ministry inspected another FVAW facility at 28265 Huntingdon Rd. in Abbotsford. Inspectors said they found piles of wood, plastic, and rubber, causing continuous effluent discharge or liquid waste to flow into the environment.

The report described the fluid as “black, brown and/or frothy effluent pooling at the base of the piles, and flowing to puddles, ponds or wetlands and subsequently discharging to Salish Creek and Pepin Brook.”

A Dec. 3, 2024, provincial pollution prevention order says the waterways are fish-bearing streams that are home to both the endangered Nooksack Dace and the at-risk Salish Sucker. It says the piles also sit over a vulnerable aquifer.

In the months that followed the order, inspectors continued to find incidents of discharge at the site. On July 8, the case was referred for a financial penalty, and FVAW was ordered to take “corrective measures” within 30 days.

Fraser Valley Regional District board member Dixon says the district has been working daily with the ministry, advocating for legislation to curb illegal dumping provincewide.

“The ministry does have to have a source-to-site, long-term plan to remedy the situation,” said Dixon. “Identifying actual places where this material can go to be dumped would be another avenue the province could explore.”

Dixon and Henderson both believe that the fines levied against Malkin’s company, thus far — $9,000 to FVAW and $8,000 to FVR — don’t go far enough to prevent future incidents.

“It comes across as the cost of doing business,” she said. “That’s something we’re working with the ministry on: substantial penalties, so it stops.”

CBC News asked the Ministry of Environment if it believes enforcement action thus far has been sufficient. It responded saying that it’s aware of FVR’s practices and that it continues to conduct inspections.

The City of Surrey says it ceased dealings with FVR as soon as it found out its waste was being dumped illegally.

Ian Paton, a Conservative MLA for Delta South and agriculture critic, says B.C.’s compliance and enforcement abilities are understaffed and underfunded.

“There’s still six enforcement officers for the entire province of B.C. to try to keep an eye out for illegal dumping on agricultural land,” he said.

Paton says communities can also strengthen municipal bylaws. Delta is among municipalities that have used bylaws to require permits for soil deposit and removal on agricultural land.

Dixon says her district is looking into a similar soil-deposit bylaw in hopes of protecting the land base — but says it can only go so far.

“It allows us to have a little bit of control of what’s happening, but it also points out our shortcomings and where our powers end,” said Dixon.