Canada ends 55-year avalanche rescue dog programme in Rocky Mountains amid budget cuts

Scott Ward remembers the look on parents' faces when a search dog he was working with found their children alive in Banff National Park, a vast and heavily wooded stretch of the Canadian Rockies. He remembers another day, when his canine partner pulled him up a steep mountainside for two hours until they reached a man with a broken leg who was close to dying of hypothermia.

Ward is 73 and retired now. He spent 17 years as a dog handler in the Rockies and calls the work gratifying. Over time the programme shrank until a single person held the role. Ward was shocked to learn recently that Parks Canada will end it entirely this month.

The decision comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney's government makes broad funding cuts across the public service. Parks Canada announced last week that hundreds of its employees will soon be laid off. The agency confirmed to the BBC that it is eliminating its sole dog handler position at Banff, calling it a "difficult decision." Banff is among the most rugged parts of Canada and draws more than four million visitors a year. Parks Canada says the move is part of modernising its law enforcement branch and that search and rescue operations "will continue to be delivered" through other means. The BBC has asked what the programme cost to run; no figure has been given.

The programme ran for 55 years. Ward says the dogs were trained to trace everything from a paper clip to shell casings to a human body. After avalanches, a common winter hazard in the area, they searched for hikers or skiers buried under heavy 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 summer, the dogs helped find lost children, often ones who had wandered away from their parents' campsites. "We lost a huge public safety and staff safety resource," he said. Other countries, Italy among them, still use avalanche dogs for mountain rescue.

The last dog in the programme, a German Shepherd named Leroy, retired in August. In seven years on the job he helped track 156 people, found 57 who were lost in the wilderness, and helped solve two murders in Banff. According to the local paper Rocky Mountain Outlook, a new dog had already been trained and was ready for duty when Parks Canada gave notice last week that the programme would be eliminated. The cut falls within C$145m (US$104m; £78m) in reductions to Parks Canada.

The decision has drawn public anger. More than 5,000 people have signed a petition since Tuesday calling for the role to be restored. It was started by William Stevenson, the Conservative MP for the Banff area. He says he welcomes tighter government spending but believes this cut could harm public safety. "How could they possibly make such a bad choice in where to cut?" he told the BBC.

Stevenson also raised the matter in Parliament during a late sitting on Thursday. Ryan Turnball, a Liberal MP and parliamentary secretary for finance, answered that the government is focused on reducing the deficit and "ensuring public funds support growth, resilience and the well-being of Canadians." Stevenson says he will keep pressing and has asked for a sit-down meeting with Parks Canada's CEO.

Ward hopes the programme will soon be restored. He recalls a saying from the 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."