BANFF NATIONAL PARK – Parks Canada is trying to capture a young black bear that feasted on sausages, chips, cheese, wraps and other human food at a picnic site on the Icefields Parkway in northern Banff National Parkway last Sunday (June 8).
The plan is to put a collar on the bear to track its movements and to do extensive aversive conditioning to try to reverse the behaviour of the bold bruin, which is showing signs of food conditioning.
Wildlife officials say the bear initially bluff-charged a person by the outhouse, though the details are unclear on whether the bear was startled, but then kept advancing toward a group of people picnicking at the Mount Coleman day-use area, about 100 km north of Lake Louise.
“Everybody was trying to scare the bear, they’re honking and shouting, but the bear was fairly undeterred,” said Saundi Stevens, a Parks Canada acting wildfire ecologist for Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay field unit.
“These people retreated from their picnic table and left a lot of food by account. … Sausages and chips and whatnot, but I don't know everything, but the bear did get cheese and wraps and so it was a significant reward.”
Parks Canada initially received conflicting reports from two different groups on whether the bruin was a black or grizzly bear. Once staff arrived at the site, however, it was determined to be a smaller-sized black bear.
The Mount Coleman day-use area was immediately closed and a trap was later set up to try to capture the black bear. The bear had not been caught by Thursday morning (June 12).
Stevens said staff also witnessed the bear displaying behaviour indicating it was likely food-conditioned.
“If we can trap it, we’ll put a radio collar on it and the plan is to move into a more formalized aversive conditioning program with it, which is kind of intensive, and we’ll have somebody following or monitoring that bear from dawn to dusk,” she said.
The intention of the aversive conditioning is to let the bear know it is not welcome in human-use areas, essentially a no-go zone for the animal.
“We’ll condition it with whatever tools we feel like it needs and we can always escalate those tools, but it usually just starts with shouting or using some noise deterrence, and then we can step that up if we need to do more forceful deterrence like chalk or rubber,” said Stevens.
“The intention there is to teach the bear that it’s not welcome or that there’s some painful or uncomfortable association with being in those human-use areas.”
Once captured, fitted with a collar and given time to recover, to be mobile and alert, the bear will be released on-site at the Mount Coleman day-use area.
“Part of that aversive conditioning program is really tying that negative experience and associating it with the area that it’s been persisting,” said Stevens.
“Delivering that kind of fearful deterrence is usually enough. The bears are pretty terrified after that and then it’s just the consistency over a set number of days until we see good behaviour.”
Wildlife staff suspect the black bear had already been fed human food before last Sunday’s incident.
In this case, they are hopeful the aversive program will be successful because the bear is fairly young.
“We don't necessarily move to aversive conditioning on all bears right away, but we’ve made the assessment that this is the first report of this bear having this behaviour that we’re aware of,” said Stevens.
“With the video and then our staff encountering the bear at the site too, it's quite a young bear, so with those younger bears, there tends to be more success in trying to reverse that behaviour through aversive conditioning,” she added.
“In my mind, it's quite far along that food-conditioning spectrum, but it’s the first report we've had of this bear. We haven't had a chance to work with it. We'd like to give it a chance and see and then we could assess from there.”
Stevens said a lot of bears, unfortunately, get fed roadside on Icefields Parkway, also known as Highway 93 North.
She said bears become habituated as visitors stop in vehicles to view bears, potentially getting fed, which puts the animals on a dangerous path towards food conditioning.
“We do see pretty regular black bear habituation up in that part of the field unit, and I think a lot of these issues begin with roadside bears and then getting fed from vehicles,” Stevens said.
“The more people that stop, the more incidents we’re seeing of people tossing things out their window for bears, and that’s where they’re learning this behaviour,” she added.
“Please consider not stopping and/or slowing down, taking a picture and keep moving on.”
Visitors can help keep themselves and bears safe by keeping all food, coolers, and scented items secured; never leaving food unattended, even for a moment; and using wildlife-proof garbage bins and clean up after meals.
It is also illegal to feed bears or any wildlife in national parks.
“Just never, ever feed wildlife,” Stevens said. “The message that we’re really trying to get out is human food does kill wildlife.”
