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LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON - Fort Providence residents are about to get the opportunity to provide input on how they'd like their nearby bison population managed.

Strategies to keep bison out of communities and reduce the number of collisions on highways will be part of the bison management plans being developed for each of the three bison populations in the territory. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

Last spring the Department of Environment and Natural Resources drafted a strategy for managing bison in the territory. The next step is to create management plans for each of the three bison populations in the NWT, said Terry Armstrong, a bison ecologist with the department based in Fort Smith.

The process of creating the plan for the Mackenzie bison population will begin with a public workshop in Fort Providence on July 27.

The workshop, which was requested by the Fort Providence Resource Management Board, will give residents the opportunity to talk about bison management and what they'd like to see for the Mackenzie bison population, Armstrong said.

The management plans will cover population objectives including how many animals people want, as well as approaches to managing the populations and how to collect the data that will be needed to make decisions, he said.

"We need these management plans because we have conflicting management needs involving the population," said Armstrong.

One of the plan's challenges will be to balance population growth with limiting unwanted human interaction, including incursions into communities and collisions on the highways.

Wood bison are listed as threatened under the Federal Species at Risk Act, so the plans will have to look at how to achieve the recovery goals while meeting the other objectives, he said.

The Mackenzie bison population includes approximately 1,600 animals, based on a census from March 2008. A management plan for the population was developed in 1987 but hasn't been updated since.

"Things have changed dramatically since then," Armstrong said.

The new plan will be put together by a working group that will be comprised of community residents, bison population management boards and staff from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR). In addition to Fort Providence, people from Behchoko and potentially Yellowknife will be included in the group.

It hasn't been determined who will enact the management plans, but Armstrong said it might be jointly done between the affected communities and the territorial government.

Work has already begun on the management plan for the Nahanni bison population. ENR held a community meeting in Nahanni Butte in May.

The meeting was well attended with between 15 and 20 people, including a number of students, participating and providing comments, said Nic Larter, the regional biologist for the Deh Cho.

The most common issue was how to minimize bison incursions into the community, said Larter. Residents also wanted to know if the department would be continuing an initiative started last year when a local resident was hired as a wildlife monitor. The monitor coaxed bison out of the community and cleaned up after them.

Nahanni Butte has a proactive approach to bison management and there is interest in moving the plan forward, Larter said.

The next step will be to get the First Nation to recommend community members to join a working group.

ENR will also be meeting with the Acho Dene Koe First Nation in Fort Liard on July 18. This will be the first management plan for the Nahanni population, which is estimated at 400 animals.

Work hasn't begun on a plan for the third population in the territory, the Slave River lowlands population.

The plan for that population will be more complicated because it's part of a larger population that's found in Wood Buffalo National Park on both the NWT and Alberta sides of the border, said Armstrong.

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