Female grizzly bear 148 continues to find her way onto the deadly Trans-Canada Highway.
She’s been known to cross Texas gates at both the Sunshine and Norquay interchanges, and get access to the highway near Harvie Heights. More recently, she somehow breached the highway wildlife fence a few kilometres east of Banff.
Banff resident Blair Cosgrove saw the five-and-a-half-year-old female bear on the Legacy Trail early on the morning of Aug. 31. He quickly called Parks Canada, whose resource conservation staff arrived within five minutes to help get 148 back to the safe side of the fence.
“She was the lone occupant of the Legacy Trail and was literally sprinting west towards Banff, desperately trying to find a gap in the fence and get off the highway,” Cosgrove said.
“She was sprinting the whole time, and then dodged to try to climb the fence, but was unsuccessful. It was mayhem as she was trapped between highway traffic and the fence.”
Bill Hunt, resource conservation manager for Banff National Park, said they don’t know how bear 148 made it onto the highway side of the fence, but it’s a possibility she crawled under it.
“She was on the wrong side of the TCH and we were able to successfully haze her back out, I believe near the power plant,” he said.
Meanwhile, Parks Canada is in the process of replacing the old wildlife fence along the highway from the park’s east gate to the Sunshine interchange. Some work will also be done on specific sections of fence between Sunshine road and Castle Mountain interchange.
The $26 million project includes improved wildlife fencing alignment, current standard fencing components such as aprons, access gates for patrols, connections to wildlife structures, jump outs, electro-mats and remote wildlife cameras.
Work is scheduled to be finished in 2018-19. This summer and fall, work is focused on replacing the fence on the westbound side of the highway from the park’s east gate to Compound Road (kilometre zero to km 15.5), and on the eastbound side from km 14.5 to km 15.5.
“It looks to me like things are going very well. I drive by every morning,” Hunt said.
“You can see the old fence stacked up along the highway and it looks much worse than we thought it was.”
