The province of Alberta is close to wrapping up its review of whether or not to change the no-rehabilitation rule for orphaned grizzly and black bears.
Paul Frame, the province’s carnivore specialist with Alberta Environment and Parks, said the department is looking at its policy specifically for rehabilitation of orphaned bear cubs.
He said the review was initiated after three black bear cubs were dumped in a washroom Banff National Park earlier this year. The cubs were sent to Ontario because of Alberta’s ban on the rescue, rehabilitation or release of bears into the wild.
“The target is to have that review done by the end of November and then we’ll have some recommendations associated with that review, which we’re not sure what those will be,” said Frame.
“I guess it would be either developing standards for rehabilitation centres to accept bears, or it would be, ‘no, we feel that we should stay with our current policy based on X, Y and Z,’ ” he added.
“I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up that a review may end up changing anything, but it may. If it does, we would work with the rehab community to come up with standards based on international standards for rehabilitation of bears.”
The current Alberta policy, put in place in 2010, bans the rescue, rehabilitation and release into the wild of several wildlife species, including grizzly bears, which are a threatened species, as well as black bears.
At least 25 orphaned bears have been killed because of the policy.
The policy raised debate earlier this year when three female black bear cubs were dumped and locked in a washroom off the Trans-Canada Highway overlooking Vermilion Lakes west of the Banff townsite on April 1.
There was no sign of the mother bear at the time they were found and, despite an extensive three-day search and checking of remote trail cameras, wildlife staff in Banff could not find the mamma bear.
Parks Canada ended up sending the cubs to Ontario’s Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, which typically rehabilitates between 10 and 20 bears per year.
More recently, an injured yearling black bear west of Calgary has thrown the no-rehab rule into the spotlight again. For several weeks, the injured young bear has been seen limping in a farmer’s field along Highway 22 about 40 kilometres west of Calgary.
Meanwhile, the three orphaned cubs from Banff are getting ready for their long winter’s sleep.
“The cubs are doing well and are in their winter den now, but still awake,” said Howard Smith, managing director of Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary.
Because the plan is to bring the bears to Banff National Park next spring, staff and volunteers have taken extra care to minimize their interactions with the cubs so they do not become habituated to human contact.
Smith said these cubs will be given everything they need to be successful upon release into the wild, noting wildlife is very instinctive and naturally know how to behave in wild settings.
The cubs will be introduced to meat as they are being released in Banff National Park. They’ll hunt, but black bears’ diets consist of mostly natural vegetation, plants, and meat if they find an animal pre-deceased.
When discovered in the washroom in Banff in April, the cubs were about three months old and were in the four- to six-pound range in weight.
“They are probably around 160 lbs now,” said Smith.
Despite some theories, including one that the bear cubs were dumped by a hunter who was in neighbouring B.C., Parks Canada’s investigations never uncovered the circumstances leading to the cubs abandonment.
Parks Canada officials say the file is inactive with no further leads, suspects or new evidence.
“Parks Canada law enforcement would certainly reactivate the file if new information or evidence came to us,” said Christie Thomson, a spokesperson for Banff National Park.
