‘Bathroom bears’ tap into cosy new life in their dens
Two bear cubs found in a Banff National Park bathroom last year are all cosied up in their dens for hibernation season.
They were among three black bear cubs found locked in a Vermillion Lakes rest stop washroom in April 2017.
Only three months old at the time, the cubs were sent to the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Ontario for rehabilitation and a better chance at survival in the wild.
One of the cubs was eaten by a suspected grizzly bear in September, just weeks after the animals were returned to the Banff area.
But Jesse Whittington, wildlife ecologist with Parks Canada’s Banff field unit, said the two remaining bears survived long enough to take an extended winter’s nap after gorging themselves on berries and anything else they could find through the year.
“They’re yearling female black bears, so they denned at a similar time to what we see for female griz- zly bears,” Whittington said, adding their separate dens are only 10 kilometres from one another.
The cubs split up when they were released in Banff, but Whittington said data from their GPS trackers shows the female cubs stayed relatively close to each other while getting to know their habitat.
He said the cubs’ home ranges were “never very far apart,” and the two bears were “probably aware of each other” as they foraged the backcountry — kind of the equivalent of bear neighbours.
The cubs have been hibernating since mid October and early November, and Whittington said the pair will stay denned until at least late April.
Whittington said the battery life on the cubs’ GPS collars only lasts for a year, so researchers and park staff will lose track of them around the time they leave the den.
But spending their pre-hibernation months in the Banff area has better prepared the bears for life in the Rockies, Whittington said, adding he hopes the surviving cubs meet a better fate than their sister.
“They’ll have a much better understanding of the landscape, where to find good food and what sort of hazards they might encounter on the landscape,” Whittington said.
“We really hope for these bears’ success as much as possible.”