PARK TRACKS ROGUE BEAR
No. 136 devours smaller grizzly
It’s a bear- eat- bear world in Banff National Park.
Not to be outdone by the wellknown No. 122, another dominant male grizzly bear in the park has eaten a much smaller grizzly bear.
The GPS collar of No. 136, a 225- kilogram bear known as Split Lip because he’s got a scar on his mouth, was found by resource conservation staff around Mystic Pass on Oct. 29 when they conducted an investigation after receiving a signal it had come off.
It appeared he had been rubbing against a tree.
“His collar was on the ground at the site,” said Steve Michel, human- wildlife conflict specialist with Banff National Park. “As they were retrieving that collar and they were walking away, they located a grizzly bear carcass that did not belong to No. 136.
“It had been fully consumed so there’s a high probability that No. 136 consumed the carcass.”
Staff retrieved the skull of the dead grizzly bear, which helped officials confirm with 99 per cent certainty that it’s No. 132 — a 90- kilogram adult male bear. Hair samples will be sent for DNA testing to make the final confirmation, said Michel.
The incident is one of the interesting pieces of information wildlife specialists learned this summer after having GPS collars on 13 of the national park’s 60 or so beloved bears. The collars, which help researchers track each bear’s movements, are part of a joint project between Parks Canada and Canadian Pacific Railway that’s meant to help prevent further deaths on the transportation corridors.
No grizzly bears have been killed on the tracks or highways so far this year, but Michel noted that No. 132 is the second research grizzly bear that has died.
No. 144, also a male grizzly bear, was euthanized by provincial fish and wildlife officers on July 22 after he wandered out of the national park and killed a number of sheep and llamas on a farm near Sundre.
Other bears have also shed their collars, leaving only seven bears still being monitored with GPS technology.
Most of those bears are still active throughout Banff National Park — including one young female, No. 148, that’s hanging around the Banff townsite.
“We’ve got one, maybe two, bears that are starting to look like they are moving less in an area that would be a likely location for denning so I expect with those individuals there’s a high probability they will end up denning in a week or two,” said Michel.
Others are still searching for food to fatten up before winter after a tough year for berries, one of the main food sources for bears.
Michel said it could also explain the latest bear- eat- bear incident.
“In years when bears are more food stressed — so they haven’t been able to put on as much fat — they are more likely to have these kinds of interactions with each other,” he said, noting there are similar cases in their historical records.
About a decade ago, when the berry crop was also poor, Michel said a couple of collared adult female grizzly bears were killed around Lake Louise by a large male.
It’s unknown in the most recent case whether No. 132 was killed by No. 136, but Michel said it’s entirely possible.
“These sorts of interactions are happening all of the time in the natural world,” he said, noting they wouldn’t have found the evidence without the collars being on the bears. “It’s only rare instances that we’re actually made aware of it and we have some insight into the interactions.”
Another similar case was stumbled across in August 2013 when hikers found No. 122 — a wellknown, 275- kilogram bear — feeding on a carcass near Sundance Canyon.
Wildlife officials closed the area and later determined it was a small black bear that had been killed by the large grizzly.
No. 122 and No. 136 are two of the largest known male grizzly bears in Banff National Park.
The rival bears led to a closure around Vermilion Lakes in June 2014 when they were on the road at the same time during breeding season due to concerns they could get involved in a fight over a female bear.
In years when bears are more food stressed ... they are more likely to have these kinds of interactions with each other.