by Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

NNSL (Nov 10/97) - The North's foremost bison researcher is heading south, but he's not gone for good.

Cormack Gates, who has overseen the resurgence of the North's wood bison herds during his 14 years as a wildlife researcher with the territorial Department of Resources and its precursors, is leaving the job Friday.

He has accepted a post with Calgary-based Axys Environmental Consulting, which counts among its current projects an environmental impact study of the proposed Diavik diamond mine.

"I may be down south, but my heart will always be in the North," Gates said from his Fort Smith office last week.

His will work with the company on various projects that should bring him to the North, he said, and he will continue working on several projects involving the North's bison.

There are few species in the North, and practically no large mammals, that Gates has not studied, although the self-effacing researcher downplays his own role in overseeing the comeback of one the region's most important and majestic large mammals.

Gates, who first got interested in the study of birds at an early age, began studying mountain goats while in university and moved on to elk, caribou and peregrine falcons in quick succession.

In 1983, he began studying the North's endangered bison, and that began a lengthy process that brought the beasts back from the edge of extinction. Gates says his connection with the bison will continue, even as he takes on a new and challenging position.

"I'll be taking a few things with me," he said. "There are a couple of projects that I will continue to be involved in."

The highlight of his years in the North, he says, is the ongoing project to establish a protected herd of wood bison near Fort Resolution that will be kept free of anthrax and brucellosis, two pernicious and deadly cattle diseases, and provide a healthy breeding stock.

"That is the crown jewel for me," he said.

"That, and the number of graduate students I have had the chance to work with in the years I've been in the North, are the things that stand out for me."

Among the wildlife projects that Gates will continue to work on after leaving the NWT is an ambitious proposal to restock the Russian steppes with Canadian bison.

Since they are kissing cousins to the Pleistocene steppe bison, which became extinct on the Asian mainland sometime between 2000 and 6000 BC, they make perfect candidates for the turning-back-the-clock project.

This year, Canada and Russia formally expressed interest in restocking the bison herd as part of a huge project to rebuild a traditional ecosystem in the Siberian region of Sakha.

Project managers hope to include wolves, caribou, moose and, on the top of the Sakha food chain, in place of the long-extinct sabre-tooth tiger, Siberian tigers.

Russian and Canadian wildlife researchers are now working on the details of the bison exchange.

"It's a fascinating project," Gates said. "The Russians have a real interest in restoring the grassland steppe ecosystem and that includes bison and their predators."