EDMONTON — The Alberta government threw a lifeline Thursday to its dangerously dwindling population of grizzly bears.

Mel Knight, the minister of sustainable resource development, announced the bears would now be classified as a threatened species.

The move kickstarts further protection measures, including the politically tricky one of limiting access to bear habitat by hunters, industry workers, and ATV riders.

"We want grizzlies to remain part of the heritage of the province of Alberta," Knight told a news conference at Government House.

"There's going to be some more focus put on access," he added.

"We've had excellent co-operation from industry players (and) pretty good co-operation from most people who recreate in Alberta.

"We're looking forward to some better co-operation."

It's estimated there are about 700 grizzlies in Alberta, most in the federal and provincial parks. Designating the bears as threatened means the government must implement a recovery plan within a year.

Knight noted some steps have already been taken. The legally sanctioned grizzly hunt has been suspended since 2006, he said.

The issue of access roads -- which bring workers, hunters and ATV riders into bear habitat -- is seen as the key to the problem.

Last week, a report from a coalition of conservation groups detailed how restricting access in bear areas in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho has tripled the bear count to 600 over the last generation.

Opposition NDP critic Rachel Notley said Thursday that if the province doesn't meaningfully restrict access, grizzlies will remain at risk.

"We can designate grizzly bears threatened, we can suspend the hunt, but until we take real action to limit human contact with these animals, they will continue to be killed unnecessarily," said Notley.

The Alberta Fish and Game Association, however, has warned the issue can be political quicksand for Premier Ed Stelmach's governing Progressive Conservatives.

Any move to restrict public access, it says, risks upsetting the party's core rural constituency. And recent sliding poll numbers for the Tories suggest those rural voters are weighing a jump to the rival upstart Wildrose Alliance Party.

Knight said he knows restricting access will cause some pushback, but said he still expects everyone will fall into line.

"By and large people do understand this is a species we want in Alberta," he said.

The announcement comes after the province's own Endangered Species Conservation Committee renewed a call it first made seven years ago to designate the species as threatened.

Knight said the government didn't put the threatened tag on the grizzlies at that time because it questioned the science behind the counts.

"What we have in front of us today is five years' worth of very solid work by a scientific community doing internationally accepted work," said Knight.

"That gives me the confidence to move forward."

He said the government is already spending a million dollars a year on measures to protect grizzlies, including programs to teach people how to avoid bear encounters in the wild.

The grizzlies join the peregrine falcon and trumpeter swan among others on the list of threatened species. The legal definition of threatened species is one that is likely to become endangered if immediate steps aren't taken.

Studies show that about half the Alberta bears live in the foothills and mountains in the Grande Cache region east of Edmonton. Most of the rest are scattered in pockets of 100 or fewer up and down the Rocky Mountain chain on the boundary with British Columbia.