Of Bears and Ben

My boots crunched loudly through the snow – its surface uniformly encrusted by exposure to last night’s cool air. A few inches in the foothills could mean a foot or more in the higher elevations. Luckily, today we weren’t headed into the alpine. My job this morning was simply to procure a remote sensor camera trap. I’d follow my handheld GPS to a waypoint, made earlier that spring, so we could retire the camera for the season. Grizzly bears hibernate through the winter in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains and so would these cameras.

It was late October and I was glad to see the foothills’ first snowfall. The snow added something extra to the landscape – a mixture of evergreens, imposing granite cliffs, and glacial lakes. But our hike today was through mine land. Once rolling spruce forest, these hills had been blasted with dynamite. They were now a series of flat, treeless plateaus in terraced steps, as only humans can alter the landscape. Unintentionally, we have also inspired some of the best animal habitat in the area. Expansive meadows now replaced thick forest cover. These grasses attracted all sorts of animals in the critical months before the deep winter freeze. I’d seen elk, sheep, and even bears along the road during my field work.

This morning’s hike was notably more beautiful in the snow. The hills of dying grass were dusted with just enough white to add color and depth to a dormant landscape. We hiked five miles to the GPS waypoint. The camera was somewhere along a ledge cut horizontally into the vertical slopes of an old quarry. Trees covered the upland slope above the trail. The lower side fell away into a near vertical wall. Loose scree covered this steep slope, all the way to a manmade reservoir.

My co-worker, Ray, and I paused to admire the view. It was not quite the pristine glacial waters of nearby Jasper National Park. But it was a stunning lake at the foot of the Rockies - icy blue against cold granite. We stepped out onto the barren ledge, careful not to peer too far over the edge. A herd of bighorn sheep grazed on the precipitous slope below us. We admired their fortitude, hooves that delicately adjust to the uneven angles in the rock. A slight breeze drifted through the open air. The sun shone. It was as benign of a morning as you could imagine, until suddenly it wasn’t.

Sheep bleated loudly from the far edge of the lake. Rocks tumbled downward, picking up speed. Their echoes reverberated through the former quarry walls. The entire herd ran in our direction. Ray pointed towards the region of the offense. He’d seen something retreat hastily into the woods. The sheep paced nervously below us, now wholly past our rock ledge.

As we debated what just happened, a new noise filled the air. It was a steady huff, the labored breathing of a large creature fast approaching. I will say – that as much as you can train for an encounter with a grizzly bear – NOTHING can prepare you for the moment one approaches you. We inched back to the corner of the ledge, our backs against open air.  There was nowhere else to go. We raised our bear spray in anticipation, with serious doubt of whether it would actually matter. Like a horror movie, the breathing grew louder. Did we glimpse movement from just inside the tree line? Tough to say what we saw in the thick growth that stretched vertically above us. An eternity passed. Or maybe a single breath, held unintentionally, until my lungs felt ready to burst.

Nothing emerged. The mysterious breathing slowly faded into the shadows. I felt my own breath begin to regulate. My heart beat heavily in my head. The sheep were likewise less agitated. The moment had passed.

Neither Ray nor I could confirm the being that nearly crossed our path. Too loud for a lion… a bear? Sasquatch? My gut said bear, but no reason to stay here pondering any longer. We grabbed the camera and high-tailed it back down the trail. We stopped on the far side of the quarry to search for signs in the snow. Sure enough, grizzly tracks! Forepaws larger than my palm, claws as long as my fingers – we stopped to admire (and photograph) the evidence. 

A mixture of relief and awe swirled inside – as well as a healthy dose of urgency. We could laugh about this close call later. The crunch of snow resumed. We left our footsteps alongside these recent bear tracks, headed away from their wild source.  Perhaps it would be best to observe this bear from the safety of our remote camera photographs.

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50,000 grizzly bears once roamed the continental United States. And there were many more throughout Alaska, Canada, and even central Mexico! Western Canada still contains some of the world’s best remaining grizzly habitat but these wonderful bears were nearly extirpated from the lower 48 USA states in the 1900’s. In 1975, there were only 136 bears left in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and only 4 other small populations remained south of the Canadian border.

The US Endangered Species Act protected grizzly bears under federal law in 1976. And today, grizzly bears are a massive conservation success story. In 2019, more than 700 grizzly bears roamed the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Everyone from federal employees, private landholders, and NGO’s have been critical to its recovery. These successes also present new challenges and opportunities for human-bear coexistence. And though we have coexisted across North America for many thousands of years, the expansion of human communities and our activities (i.e. ranching, recreation) are some of the biggest challenges facing bear populations in the western United States today.

Why might our land use and activities affect Grizzly bears? Grizzly bears have massive home ranges. Males can roam over territory as great as 1,500 square miles, often in oblong shapes between smaller female home ranges. Human communities and infrastructure - notably roads, have a significant impact on the movement of bears. One busy highway can completely isolate a population of bears. Meanwhile, unused roads and trails can actually facilitate bear travel across the landscape. Consider that it’s far easier for us humans to walk on a trail than bushwhack through the woods - well same goes for a bear! Our recreation (via foot, ORV, ATV, bike, or snowmobile) has an impact on how bears move across the land, even in a roadless protected area. When corridors become too populated, or a busy highway intersects the route, bears will no longer use these bi-ways, fragmenting their habitat. A series of casual users, say out-of-town tourists, in a popular park interact with bears every day on the landscape - whether we know it or not! The more we know, the more we can advocate for active planning or minimize our communal impact on a shared landscape.

And how might bears interact with the people who live and work on the land? From a rancher’s point-of-view, Grizzly bears are opportunists. They eat anything and everything - including cattle. More bears on the landscape also means that bears are reclaiming homeland shared with humans. And so ranchers sometimes deal with increased livestock depredation from grizzlies. While some innovative strategies exist (guard dogs, electric fencing, range riders) there is some inevitable give and take associated with sharing the land together. Some of this means there are simply places too densely populated for both bears and humans. Some of this matters in how we perceive the fundamental rights for bears and what interactions we are willing to accept. Coexistence comes with understanding. Compassion for our fellow bears means more places, more active management for the requisite conditions of a shared landscape. It means more biodiversity, more wild places on our planet. And I for one, am someone who cannot live without wild spaces - as well as the bears we share them with.

You here for more bear facts? I’m your guy. Just why are grizzlies so damn cool? Look at their paws! Grizzly bear claws are around 4 inches long - as long as human fingers! They are mostly used for digging in the Earth to eat roots and grubs. Though omnivorous, much of their diet is composed of plants and they can eat up to 90 pounds of food a day!

Grizzlies forage heartily in the warm months before they bed down for the winter. This long sleep was once thought to be full-out hibernation. But scientists have recently shown that grizzly bears bed down in a state of torpor (true hibernation requires a significant temperature drop and slower heartbeat).

There are many ways of knowing bear behavior and our relationships with them. See for yourself through some of these grizzly tales in books and movies:

• Tales of Grizzly: 39 Tales of Grizzly Bear Encounters in the Wilderness

• Grizzly Years: In Search of the American Wilderness

• Grizzly Country (the documentary about the author of Grizzly Years)

• Grizzly Man

• Brother Bear

• BearTrek

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Find some more places to see, food to eat, and books to read if you’re visiting Canada!

Or check out these photos of Banff and Jasper National Parks for yourself!