For as long as I can remember, I've had a fascination with nature and the unexplored

wilderness.

I remember me wandering through the woods outside my house when I was a kid, collecting

plants and fungi for personal collections.

I was sometimes wonder through shut-up ons, catching frogs, totes and noots under the

small net, the same net being used to catching insects as well.

As time would pass, I'd eventually move onto greater wilderness, geared with hiking, camping

and photography equipment for the wildlife I sought to capture shots of.

Today, I'm a biologist and environmentalist, with my wildlife expertise being mainly

in mammals, specifically bears and large carnivores.

The job I remember having the most was with the Canadian Wildlife Service, or CWS for short,

where I was tasked with tracking and observing grizzly bears in order to assess the challenges

and threats they face.

You see, permanent removal of suitable habitat by human activity within Grizzly Distribution

remains one of the principal threats to the bears.

And because individual grizzlies need large home ranges, large scale industrial projects,

increased future resource development and establishment of transportation corridors could potentially

pose a significant threat by the removal of a large portion of effective habitat, in turn

significantly limiting their range.

Climate change also posed the threat, with mountain pine beetle populations propagating

as a result, and destroying forests of white bark pine, these trees being an essential

food source for grizzlies.

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