Whistle Bend road proposal could harm wildlife: group

The City of Whitehorse's plans to build roads to the proposed Whistle Bend subdivision could have a devastating impact on the McIntyre Creek wildlife corridor, according to a local environmental group.

The Friends of McIntyre Creek Society is worried about a city proposal to build roads along McIntyre Creek from the Alaska Highway down to Whistle Bend, near the mouth of the creek.

Society president Dorothy Bradley said animals that use the creek will have no way of crossing through the centre of Whitehorse to highland habitats on each side of the Yukon River.

The proposed road from the Alaska Highway along the creek to the subdivision would chop the wildlife corridor into pieces, Bradley told CBC News.

"Here's a pocket of moose that move from Swan Lake, on the other side of the Yukon River or from the wetlands, down around the river, up to Fish Lake," she said.

"They'll have no access to their winter range up in Fish Lake and the Upper McIntyre Creek. So what do they do from there?"

The Friends of McIntyre Creek Society plans to voice its concerns Thursday afternoon at a public meeting hosted by the Yukon Environmental and Socio-Economic Assessment Board, which has to decide whether to grant environmental permits for the Whistle Bend project.

Environmentally-friendly subdivision

If approved, the Whistle Bend subdivision couldbe home to upwards of10,000 people.

Society board member Karen Baltgailis said the road plans and the city's assumption that all Whistle Bend residents would be driving cars are contrary to the city's goal of creating an environmentally sensitive subdivision.

"Whatever happened to the idea of public transit? This is meant to be an environmentally-friendly subdivision," she said.

"I would find it really ironic if in order to create a so-called environmentally-friendly subdivision at Whistle Bend one of the last remaining east-west travel corridors for wildlife and an area that is a critical bird habitat would be basically trashed."

Baltgailis said the city should instead set up transit service between Whistle Bend and downtown.

Thursday's public meeting is slated to begin at 3:30 p.m. PT Thursday at the Westmark Hotel.