A bold female black bear that had been hanging out in the Banff townsite feasting on fruit trees and causing a significant public safety concern had to be euthanized after a capturing procedure accidentally went wrong.
On Friday (Aug. 29), Parks Canada wildlife managers were trying to capture the three-year-old female bear on The Banff Centre property to relocate it out of town before the busy September long weekend. But a tranquillizer dart hit her spine and paralyzed the bear’s hind legs.
Following discussions with a wildlife veterinarian, the young bear was given time to recover from the anesthetic and fed food and water over the next day-and-a-half, but the bruin never regained use of its hind legs and a decision was made to euthanize it Sunday (Aug. 31).
“It’s a really unfortunate accident that happened,” said Steve Michel, human-wildlife conflict specialist for Banff National Park. “We have extensive animal care handling procedures, but it does underscore the inherent risk whenever we capture and handle animals.”
The bear, known as 1401, was initially captured and fitted with a radio collar and ear tag on July 4 when it was consistently hanging out in the Tunnel Mountain campground area, often strolling through the middle of campsites.
Parks resource conservation officers monitored the bear throughout the summer.
“She didn’t get into major problems, but certainly she continued to frequent the area and was quite comfortable around humans and facilities,” said Michel.
About a week ago, however, bear 1401 started showing up in the Banff townsite on a daily basis, at all times of the day and night, climbing fruit trees, primarily chokecherry trees, in search of a tasty snack.
At one point, the bruin was up a tree mere feet from a balcony where children were playing at the Whiskey Creek condos. The bear also made it onto the roof of one of the three-storey buildings there and climbed a tree near a bus stop on Banff Avenue opposite the Fox Hotel.
Bear 1401 was constantly being hazed away from the townsite, taking up extensive staff resources.
“She was literally in dozens of different chokecherry trees throughout town and causing us a fair amount of concern because she really wasn’t displaying any indication of being wary anywhere in the townsite or wary of people at all,” said Michel.
“Throughout all of last week, all hours of the day and night on a regular basis, she would constantly come into town. We would haze her out and she would immediately sneak around and come right back in again,” he added.
“The lower elevations in and around the Banff area has essentially berry crop failure and there was very little natural food to fatten up on, so she started accessing fruit trees in town to replace that missing food.”
A decision was made last Friday to relocate her outside the townsite before the town was swarmed by visitors for the Labour Day long weekend, a time wildlife experts are kept extremely busy. The plan was to relocate her within the bruin’s home range.
Parks Canada was hoping to buy some time over the Labour Day weekend, planning to mount an extensive aversive conditioning program when she inevitably came back.
“We figured it would be a couple of days before she returned to town and be up to her old tricks, and then we’d be in a position to work intensively with her for a couple of weeks and try to reverse her behaviour,” said Michel.
“We were quite optimistic we might have some headway with that because she was a young female bear, with the biggest factor being there was no indication she had gotten into any garbage.”
Michel was quick to praise the owners of Whiskey Creek condos for swiftly cutting down all 13 chokecherry trees, as well as Town of Banff staff who immediately issued permits to allow that to happen.
He said trees at Tunnel Mountain Resort have been marked for removal and he expects them to be cut soon as well.
