Friends of the Eastern Slopes Association
PO Box 6093 T4G 1S7 Innisfail, AB, Canada

FOESA has a fundraising opportunity for a group or groups. If your group is interested in painting our bathrooms, please contact a director.

Campground Hosts for 2021 With the success of the host program in 2020, we are expanding it to all campgrounds for 2021. Most of last years hosts are returning for 2021. If you are interested please let us know the campground and weeks you are available?

FOESA tries its best to stay out of political issues but we do believe it is important for our future generations to be able to use the eastern slopes as we do today. Cows and Fish empowers people who live, work, and play in Alberta to take actions that care for riparian areas. We are hoping to bring awareness to the importance of our headwaters for water security and inspire people to take action that leads to healthy riparian areas and watersheds. A message from Cows and F...ish: We have created a film called Connecting Land and Water: Stories from the Eastern Slopes that we are launching on March 1st followed by an open discussion period with a panel of guests featured in the film. This film features inspiring stories of the people Cows and Fish has worked with, the landowners, user groups, and partner organizations, that have undertaken riparian stewardship projects in the Eastern Slopes. Please take a look at the trailer for the film, and if you feel like it resonates with your group’s message we would be extremely grateful if you could share the trailer with a link to the event attached. This is a great opportunity for a Q&A to further a conversation that is important to everyone. And we would like to thank you for the work that you do and for continuing to share the workload on such an important topic like water. Trailer: https://www.facebook.com/cowsandfish/videos/3468485930043618 Event (to share as a link attached to trailer): https://fb.me/e/52hvAWq2d

If the person or if someone knows who has had an outfitters tent set up in the Bighorn, please have it removed by the end of February. The rule of a 14 day stay does get overlooked later in the hunting season but 3 months might be taking advantage.

NEWSLETTER NOW AVAILABLE BELOW MERRY CHRISTMAS A look back on 2020 and looking to the future of Friends of the Eastern Slopes Association... https://www.foesa.org//upload/MERRY%20CHRISTMAS%202020%20F

Here is a short update from the Banff National Park Bison Reintroduction Project: Twenty eight months (2+ years) have passed since we released our small herd of bison into the backcountry of Banff National Park. The free-roaming herd has grown to 50 animals; All but two animals have survived so far; a 3-month old calf went missing in 2019 (and presumably died of natural causes), and a newborn calf was lost to wolf predation this spring (May 2020); All other animals ar...e healthy and have subsisted on natural forage only (we have not fed them since we released them); The average annual growth rate of the herd since we translocated them in 2017 is 38% per year. This is expected to decrease as the young herd ages and the initial high female-to-male ratio of the founder herd equalizes; The 50 animals continue to move mostly as a single herd with a few lone males periodically breaking off and rejoining. The herd continues to use meadows, grassy mountain slopes, and previously burned forests in the Panther and Red Deer drainages of Banff National Park. Summers are spent high in the alpine; fall/winters are spent moving between meadow systems in the valley bottoms (see photos below); No movements outside of the 1200 km2 reintroduction zone or Banff Park occurred over the past year and no herding by Parks staff was necessary. All movements have been within 30km of the soft release pasture where the animals were held for the initial 1.5 years; The bison continue to periodically interact with two drift fences that encourage them to stay within and anchor to the target reintroduction zone (along the Red Deer and Panther rivers). The potential effect of these fences on other wildlife is something Parks Canada committed to monitoring and assessing. I’m pleased to share that we just published a paper in Wildlife Biology that confirms these fences allow for the free passage of other wildlife while deflecting bison. We fitted 7 bison cows with new or refurbished GPS radio collars over the past year to replace the original collars that have now worn or broken off. We mostly captured and collared bison from horseback (see photo below). Our goal is to have at least 10% of the population collared for the next few years; No bison-related closures or restrictions have been in place over the last year and none are expected in the future. I hope you enjoy the photos below. It continues to be very rewarding to see the animals back in the wild after an absence of 140+ years. For more photos, videos and stories, please visit our website at www.pc.gc.ca/banff-bison. Thanks for your interest and support as we explore the feasibility of longer term restoration of bison to this landscape. Please contact me if you have any questions. I will send out another update when our 2020 progress report is available, hopefully in the spring. Best, Karsten Heuer Bison Reintroduction Project Manager, Banff National Park P: 403-431-0599

YA HA TINDA RANCH AND BIGHORN CAMPGROUND OPENING PLEASE READ THOROUGHLY TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION BEFORE HEADING CAMPING YA HA TINDA RANCH TO OPEN JUNE 22, 2020...Continue reading

These 3 items were found or turned in to a host.

Just a heads up for everyone going out west to ya ha Tinda. It’s that time of year with the melting and freezing at night with the rock cuts. I have a lot of b...ig rocks coming down so watch for rocks on the road and don’t stop at them as people are still doing this! I have rocks bigger then a lot of cars coming down so be careful if your headed out! See more

Unedited Sunset at the Ya Ha Tinda! Photo credit to Abbi Lynne Kendze

Found at Hummingbird

Happy ending! Horse was found. LOST AT YA HA TINDA A 5yr old grey mare with pack boxes on went missing last night up past the miners road near marker 12 on the map. She has an orange halter on. Owner - Kaila Gibson