As we discussed at the CCSO Board Meeting on Saturday, I am forwarding you the web site that contains the technical documents supporting snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park. Many of these documents positively support snowmobiling to continue in Yellowstone and could be helpful in your discussions in Canada.
http://www.nps.gov/yell/parkmgmt/winterusetechnicaldocuments.htm
Study results that were most notable and I think are worthy of more thought are as follows:
1. In Yellowstone National Park, which is 2.2 million acres (1/2 the size of the state of Connecticut) you hear snowmobiles on less than 2% of the total land mass. This is notable since obviously our trail system only makes up a very small percentage of the land mass in Canada, and any snowmobile sound is quite confined to those specific areas. our impact is substantively less than 2% - unless you pipe up your sled.
2. Studies show that behavioral responses of wildlife to snowmobiles was minimal. A behavioral response can be as small as an animal lifting its head as a snowmobile passes by. All of the animals increase their response to humans when they were approached on foot vs. snowmobile. ( We all knew that!)
3. The Park Service has not detected any significant increase or decrease in the movement responses for wildlife species as snowmobile traffic increases throughout the winter. The Park Service states that this suggests habituation to snowmobiles.
4. Human disturbance on snowmobiles is not a factor influencing distribution of movements of wildlife species. Bison, elk and swan use the same core winter ranges over the last 30 years despite large winter to winter variability in cumulative exposure to snowmobiles. There is virtually no evidence that snowmobile use in the last 35 years has adversely affected the demography or population dynamics of bald eagles, bison, elk, or trumpeter swans.
The supporting documentation and studies are contained in the technical documents on the Yellowstone web site.
Ed Klim - President
International Snowmobile Manufacturers Association
1640 Haslett Road, Suite 170
Haslett, MI 48840
(517) 339-7788 phone
(517) 339-7798 fax
www.snowmobile.org
www.gosnowmobiling.org
eklim@aol.com
