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Bear-eat-bear drama suspected in Banff

Bear-eat-bear drama suspected in Banff

Grizzly bears are known to have an appetite and here’s proof: officials in Banff National Park suspect a giant bear might have cannibalized another smaller bear in the park.

Steve Michel, the human-wildlife conflict specialist with the park says the drama began to unfold when a GPS collar that had been attached to a large, male grizzly bear known as No. 136 was no longer moving. When staff investigated the site where the collar had been dropped, they discovered the remains of another grizzly bear that had been consumed.

The deceased bear, known as No. 132, was about half the size of the suspected cannibal bear.

“There’s no way we’ll ever be able to determine that the two had a conflict and 136 killed 132 or if 132 died and 136 scavenged his remains,” Michel told Yahoo Canada News. “What we could say is there’s a strong likelihood that there was a conflict there, because we have seen that behaviour in the past.”

He adds that bears are known to be competitive with each other, both within their species and with other types of bears and will consume the remains after those types of interactions happen. Larger grizzly bears will also sometimes eat bear cubs.

“In that case, it is more of a unique behavioural social interaction situation where they want to try and free up the female for breeding opportunities so they can pass along their genetics,” he says.

The primary food source for grizzly bears in the Banff region between July and mid-September is the buffaloberry. Michel says this year was a particularly bad year for the fruit, and bears aren’t as padded going into the hibernation months.

“They’re going to take advantage of any food opportunity that they can,” he says. “Bears are very opportunistic. They will scavenge, as well as being very capable predators.”

The grim inter-species incident isn’t a cause for concern for any visitors to the park.

“We’ve never had any interactions with (No. 132) in the four or five years he’s been known to us,” Michel says. “He does occasionally come through developed areas but there’s never been any issues when he’s visible.”

A number of bears in Banff National Park are equipped with GPS collars as part of a research project looking into the root causes of bear mortality. CP Rail trains that pass through the park are known to be the largest cause of bear deaths in the area, followed by the Trans Canada Highway. Millions have been spent on the overpasses, underpasses and updates to infrastructure of the highway in the region to reduce bear deaths.