Berry bonanza triggers bear warning

With a berry buffet waiting along the trails, it could be a fantastic year for bears — but it’s prompted another advisory for people looking to head into the wilderness.

Alberta Environment and Parks issued a warning Tuesday for all of Kananaskis Country, telling those planning to visit that there is a heightened possibility

Grizzly bears ... will eat up to 200,000 berries a day (and) to eat that many berries you have to stay right where your food is.

they might have a run-in with a bear.

The warning asks everyone in K-Country to respect trail closures and observe bear-smart techniques.

Kim Titchener, the founder of Bear Safety & More, said it all comes down to the mass quantities of berries available to the bears this season.

It’s the biggest berry crop seen in several years, Alberta Environment and Parks spokesperson Jill Sawyer said, due to the early spring and the weather that comes with it.

“They grow most abundantly in areas where there’s opening in the forest canopy ... they’re on our trail system and along the sides of our highways — they’re exactly where all of us like to go in the summertime,” she said.

“It’s a really important food source for bears.

“Grizzly bears, they’ve measured, will eat up to 200,000 berries a day (and) to eat that many berries you have to stay right where your food is, all the time ... they literally can hunker down and have a berry buffet, all day long.”

Plentiful berries also meant plentiful advisories, as more and more bears find their feast.

“We were getting to the point where we were sending out so many individual advisories for different places around Kananaskis Country that it didn’t really make sense any more (to keep doing that),” Sawyer said.

While it means people heading out will need to use more caution, Titchener said it’s great news for the bears.

“We’re going to see a lot of fat bears by the fall, and on top of that next spring, we’re going to see a lot of cubs.

(For people) this is an opportunity for those that are visiting bear country and Kananaskis county to get a little more brushed up on their bear safety skills,” she said.

“Maybe this will be the summer where everybody spends more time on the tops of mountains instead of on the valley bottoms.”