Canada stops using 'avalanche dogs' for rescues in Rocky Mountains, stirring outrage

Scott Ward can still recall the relief he saw on parents' faces when a search and rescue dog he was working with found their children safe in Canada's vast and heavily wooded Banff National Park.

Another time, his canine partner led him hiking up a steep mountainside for two hours until they reached a man with a broken leg who was close to dying from hypothermia.

Now 73 and retired, Ward spent 17 years as a dog handler in the wilderness of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, work he described as gratifying.

Over the years, the rescue programme was cut back to just one person in the role, and Ward was shocked when he heard recently that Parks Canada will end the programme entirely as of this month.

Prime Minister Mark Carney's government is making broad funding cuts to Canada's public service, and Parks Canada announced last week that hundreds of their employees will soon be laid off.

The agency confirmed the news to the BBC, calling it a "difficult decision" to axe its sole dog handler position out of Banff National Park, one of the most rugged parts of Canada that welcomes more than four million visitors each year from around the world.

It added it is part of its efforts to modernise its law enforcement branch, and that "search and rescue operations will continue to be delivered" through other means.

Cutting this one role has stirred public outrage, with more than 5,000 people signing a petition since Tuesday to restore it.

William Stevenson, the Conservative Member of Parliament for the Banff area who started the petition, says he welcomes tighter government spending, but that this cut could harm public safety.

"How could they possibly make such a bad choice in where to cut?" he told the BBC.

The BBC has asked Parks Canada about how much the canine search and rescue programme cost to administer.

For 55 years, the government used rescue dogs in the Canadian Rocky Mountains who were trained to trace "everything", Ward said, from a small paper clip to shell casings to a human body.

After avalanches, a common winter hazard in the area, they were called upon to search for trapped hikers or skiers underneath heavy mounds of snow.

"It saves probers hours and hours of standing shoulder to shoulder and poking in the snow, and also exposing themselves to secondary avalanche hazards," Ward said.

In the summer, they helped find children who got lost, often after wandering away from their parents' campsites.

"We lost a huge public safety and staff safety resource," he said.

Other countries still rely on canines, often called "avalanche dogs", for mountain search and rescue, including Italy, external.

The last dog in Parks Canada's programme, a German Shephard named Leroy, was retired in August.

For the seven years that he was on the job, Leroy helped track 156 people, find 57 who were lost in the wilderness, and solve two murders in Banff.

A new canine was trained and ready for duty before Parks Canada gave notice last week that the programme would be eliminated as part of recent C$145m ($104m; £78m) budget cuts to Parks Canada, local newspaper Rocky Mountain Outlook reported.

Along with his petition, Stevenson also raised the issue in Canada's parliament during a late sitting on Thursday.

In response, Ryan Turnball, a Liberal MP and the parliamentary secretary for finance, said the government is focused on reducing Canada's deficit and "ensuring public funds support growth, resilience and the well-being of Canadians".

Stevenson said he will continue to push on the issue, and has asked for a sit-down meeting with Parks Canada's CEO.

As for Ward, he hopes that the programme will soon be restored.

He recalled a quote that was often uttered by an old park warden who trained him: "You can make an armpit smell like a lilac bush and you can put a man on the moon, but nothing can replace the nose of the avalanche dog."