After months of a sometimes acrimonious conflict with provincial wildlife officials over her right to rehabilitate orphaned bears at the Cochrane Ecological Institute (CEI), Clio Smeeton was somewhat relieved to finally have her permit officially renewed in March.
But now, she finds herself and her rehabilitation facility once again at odds with the bureaucracy over what to do to prepare for a possible onslaught of injured and orphaned animals forced out of their homes by wildfires raging in northern Alberta.
The notification that they were again allowed to handle bears in March marked the end of a long, drawn-out conflict that began in 2021, when a wildlife technician from Esso discovered a bitumen-soaked cub at a fly-in oil camp in northwestern Alberta and made arrangements for it to be transported to Smeeton’s facility outside Cochrane.
The oil company employee who rescued the cub had called provincial wildlife officers the year before, when a mother bear was hit and killed by a truck, and had to watch in horror as the officer shot and killed the cub left behind. Still upset about that experience, this time, he contacted Smeeton to see if she could take in the abandoned cub.
Koda, as the five-kilogram cub came to be named, arrived at CEI on May 18 and was taken immediately to a wildlife veterinarian in Airdrie where she was cleaned up, checked out, and began feeding and acting like a normal cub.
However, the provincial departments overseeing wildlife management took exception to what they saw as an infraction of the rules, which resulted in formal charges eventually being laid against the CEI.
That process was fraught with confusion, inconsistencies, and contradictions in messaging from the various departments involved. Legal representatives from the province filed two separate but identical charges; one against Smeeton and one against the CEI, claiming rules were broken.
The then-named Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP) department revoked CEI's permit, then admitted they shouldn’t have, reinstated the document two months later, before revoking it again seven months after that.
The end result was the dropping of one charge completely and a fine of $120 for Smeeton on Dec. 16, 2022.
But the permit was not immediately restored. Smeeton said she was still required to file a number of documents before the permit was eventually reinstated on March 27.
Now, as fires continue to rage across wildlife habitat in northern Alberta, the CEI finds itself frustrated with provincial officials yet again.
In anticipation of a probable uptick in demand for rehabilitation services for orphaned and injured animals this summer, Smeeton took the initiative to attempt to create an informal network with counterparts in the rehabilitation field, so as to reduce delays and confusion in transporting animals to treatment centres.
The province has no system in place to help facilitate the handling of wildlife in need. They rely on – but do not fund – private facilities like the CEI to take over that responsibility for them.
Yet, according to Smeeton, by failing to be proactive in setting up some kind of communication around handling fire-orphaned wildlife, the province is dropping the ball.
This comes as no surprise to her, as she claims they don’t care about wildlife.
Despite the fact the recorded messages for rehab facilities often direct callers to bring in injured animals, technically, members of the public are not allowed to transport injured wildlife.
A wildlife rehabilitation permit does not extend to members of the public bringing wildlife into the facility – a rule that formed part of the government’s conflict with the CEI in 2022.
With an eye towards avoiding another dust-up, Ken Weagle (who’s name is on the CEI permit) wrote to the newly named Alberta Environment and Protected Areas (EPA) asking for direction on what they should do if demand for care of injured animals spiked.
He received no guidance. The email he got back from EPA read as follows:
“We recommend that CEI work with neighbouring facilities to determine in the case of an emergency, what could each facility take, and how could that transportation between rehabs be arranged. In the event of an emergency (EPA and fish and wildlife enforcement) will provide advice and support to the extent possible. However, (EPA and fish and wildlife enforcement’s) prime focus will be on safety of the public, facility staff and (EPA and fish and wildlife enforcement) staff."
Smeeton points to this response as bolstering her view that wildlife officials are looking out for humans, rather than animals.
“So the animals don't matter to EPA or Fish and Wildlife, which isn't surprising,” she said.
Smeeton wrote to the Wild North rehabilitation centre, Medicine River Wildlife Centre, and other facilities to say that if worst comes to worst CEI has room to accept any wildlife that has to be evacuated.
And she suggested if they agreed, that maybe they all should circulate their permits – federal and provincial – and make a tentative plan.
She closed her letter to them with the following: “With a bit of luck we'll get a series of good spring rains, but if hot weather and drought has become a permanent factor in Alberta it would be probably good for us all to have this on file. All the best and I hope evacuating wildlife never becomes necessary.”
Meanwhile, as suggested by the EPA official who sent him the email, Weagle then tried to contact Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Services (FWES), once by phone, followed by an e-mail and then a second e-mail a month later.
He said he received no response.
CEI is a registered charitable wildlife organization, whose expertise in rehabilitation based on scientific research has been recognized internationally. They’ve received the Order of the Bighorn from the province, and an Emerald Award from the Calgary corporate sector. Their advisory team has representation from Indigenous groups, internationally recognized academic specialists, farmers, ranchers, and others.
