Creator: Jeff Gailus, Journalist and Conversations and author of The Grizzly Blog.
Purpose: Highlight the need for Grizzly Bear conservation in North America.
The Grizzly Manifesto: In Defence of the Great Bear
The following is an extract from the authors blog (source below):
The grizzly bear, once the archetype for all that is wild, is quickly becoming a symbol of nature’s fierce but flagging resilience in the face of humanity’s growing appetite for natural resources — and of the difficulty our wealth-addicted society has in changing its ways.
North America’s grizzlies survived the arrival of spear-wielding humans 13,000 years ago, outlived the short-faced bear, the dire wolf and the sabre-tooth cat—not to mention mastodons, mammoths and giant ground sloths the size of elephants—but a growing wave of urbanization and industrialization continues to push the Great Bear further north and west, just as it has since Europeans arrived in its home 400 years ago.
Despite their relatively successful recovery in Yellowstone National Park, the bears’ decline in Canada continues largely unchecked. The front line in this centuries-old battle for survival has shifted to western Alberta and southern BC, where outdated mythologies, rapacious industry and disingenuous governments continue to push the Great Bear into the mountains and toward a future that may not have room for them at all.
Source
Article: http://www.canmoreleader.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3139322
Author’s Blog: http://grizzlyblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/grizzly-manifesto.html