The proposal to restart development on the massive Three Sisters resort community project in the mountain town of Canmore includes a plan to fence out wildlife and create a "hard edge" to corridors designed to move animals past development areas.
The fencing proposal comes from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the receiver tasked with picking up the pieces from failed developer Three Sisters Mountain Village.
It's a key piece of the puzzle in how PwC proposes to deal with the unresolved wildlife-corridor issue in Canmore, in hopes of making Three Sisters assets more attractive to development interests and recover some of the money that is owed to Three Sisters creditors.
The fencing proposal, along with plans to put housing on what was once supposed to be a golf course buffering the main Three Sisters wildlife corridor, has drawn strong opposition from the community. Both environmentalists and current Three Sisters property owners aren't happy that PwC has shown little interest in culling any of the 4,000 or so residential and resort accommodation units from what it's seeking in revised planning documents.
While many Canmorites consider themselves blessed to welcome wild elk and deer to their neighbourhoods, the herbivore ungulates bring with them the very real threat of predators such as cougars and bears.
Hence the fence.
Wildlife ecologist Martin Jalkotzy, working for environmental consultant Golder Associates on behalf of PwC, said, "There won't be deer and elk in people's backyards. I consider that a good thing."
Environmental groups have stressed that they want functional wildlife corridors to move animals past the community between Banff National Park and Kananaskis Country. They argue that those corridors function better when they're wider, as opposed to when they're fenced.
from Western Investor April 2013
