As Banff National Park continues to see record visitation numbers, human-wildlife occurrences in Canada’s flagship national park, including those involving bears and wolves, keep increasing year over year.
The number of wildlife occurrences – involving anything from roadside bear jams to bold wolves approaching campers to up close encounters with habituated elk – have more than doubled in the past four years, from 924 in 2013 to 2,091 in 2016.
The 2,091 occurrences in 2016 in which Banff wildlife staff were called to assess or manage risk between wildlife and people compared to 1,862 the year before, with more than half of last year’s total involving grizzly bears and black bears.
Food-conditioned wolves in the Bow Valley pack led to most of the 128 wolf occurrences last year, which compares to 40 the year before. Wildlife staff destroyed two wolves from the pack, including the alpha female, over concerns their bold behaviour was a public safety hazard.
“It’s up a fair bit from last year,” said Jon Stuart-Smith, a human-wildlife conflict specialist with Parks Canada in Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay.
“The Bow Valley wolf pack and the incidents we had related to food conditioning of those animals was a big part of why those numbers were a lot higher.”
In addition to incidents involving members of the Bow Valley wolf pack, Parks Canada officials say a bumper berry crop that kept bears in the valley bottoms longer, and human behavior, also contributed to the increase in occurrences.
Conservationists, on the other hand, say it also doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the correlation between the rise in occurrences and a dramatic increase in visitor numbers every year.
They suspect there will be even more incidents this year in the mountain parks, given free entry to national parks aimed at celebrating Canada’s 150th is expected to push visitor numbers well beyond the four million mark.
John Marriott, a prominent local wildlife photographer who knows the Bow Valley wolf pack well, said he fears this will be a tough year for wildlife, particularly because there will be more people on the landscape, including uninformed visitors.
“As we just keep on shoveling people into the parks, I think it’s a matter of time before something happens that will be extremely tragic … there’s too many people putting pressure on bears,” he said.
“There’s a huge increase in visitors, so, of course, there’s going to be more occurrences. My number one concern is wildlife are going to be impacted, that we’re going to lose some wolves, that we’re going to lose some bears this year.”
Bears, for example, accounted for more than half of the total 2,091 occurrences last year, with more than 1,000 of those involving grizzly bears and another 550 related to black bears.
By comparison, the number of bear occurrences just five years ago was 272.
Marriott worries that, like last year, park staff will again be stretched to their limit, even with additional staff being added this summer in anticipation of the onslaught of visitors.
He said he’s concerned staff will be forced to be reactive to situations, which could lead to more wildlife deaths this year as uneducated or uninformed visitors feed animals or leave messy campsites – or simply get too close to bears or wolves.
Marriott said he would love to see dedicated staff cruising Bow Valley Parkway from 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. looking for signs of potential trouble, rather than reacting when something does occur.
“Let’s say that the wolves den again where they’ve been denning the last few years along Bow Valley Parkway; I want to see Parks Canada cruises early in the morning, or crackerjacks or aversive conditioning if those pups show up on the road,” he said.
“If they can get them early while they’re young like that, the imprint it would have on them would be extremely beneficial. Maybe they can do it, but I think they’re going to be so overworked.”
Marriott said the alpha male hasn’t been travelling with the two younger wolves in the pack all the time this winter, noting he may looking for a mate, though it’s possible he did mate with his daughter.
He hopes the pack produces pups this year, but regardless, he’s worried for the remaining three.
“I’d be very surprised if all three of them survive the summer, unfortunately,” said Marriott.
Meanwhile, with a jump in visitation last year, Banff National Park wardens dealt with 471 illegal camping and 105 messy campsite violations, a drastic increase from the previous year, when there were 214 illegal camping and 39 messy campsite violations.
Many charges were laid against people related to incidents involving the park’s treasured wildlife, and many of these charges are still working their way through the court system.
Parks Canada officials say there will be increased staffing levels in 2017 in several areas, including wildlife management and campground staff, in anticipation of increased visitors.
There are also plans for more signage on the do’s and don’ts of living with wildlife in Banff. Parks has also been working on ways to better get the message out to non-English speaking tourists.
Parks Canada’s Stuart-Smith said there will be two extra staff in wildlife conflict operations, along with the current eight in Lake Louise, while in Banff there will an extra four added to the existing 17.
In addition, there are more staff for the Wildlife Guardian program, he said.
“Having increased staff in anticipation of if this happens (increased visitation) will hopefully allow us to deal with wildlife occurrences,” said Stuart-Smith.
“It’s not just in the wildlife conflict section, but there’s going to be extra staff out in the park to help observe and help get messages out on how to interact with wildlife and manage food attractants.”
The main bears around the Lake Louise townsite area last summer were 126, 134 and 142. Bear 122, also known as the Boss, and 136, known as Split Lip, did show up a few times, but the other three were the ones most often frequenting the townsite area. As always, bear 148, the female offspring of 64 and 122, kept wildlife crews busy near Banff.
There were no maulings in Banff National Park last year, though a group of four restriction was implemented in the Moraine Lake area when a bear came within five metres of hikers, who thought the bruin was following them.
In addition, grizzly 122 caused some tense moments as he walked along a trail at Johnston Canyon, forcing visitors in the area to flee.
“Overall, there wasn’t anything that was that serious last year,” said Stuart-Smith.
In addition, there were 116 human-wildlife occurrences in Yoho National Park last year and another 123 in Kootenay National Parks.
