Seven more grizzly bears have been fitted with high-tech tracking collars as part of a study aimed at preventing the threatened animals from dying on the train tracks in the mountain national parks.
A total of 12 grizzly bears are now fitted with GPS collars, including six females and six males. Seven of those bears have not been on the air before and were captured in Banff and Yoho national parks this spring in the third year of a four-year collaring project.
Tracking collars are helping Parks Canada gather vital information about the bears’ movements and habits in the hope of learning what, other than just spilled grain, may cause bears to hang out by the railway line where they can be injured or killed.
“We’re purposefully targetting bears that spend time interacting with the railway,” said Bill Hunt, resource conservation manager for Banff National Park.
“We’re trying to understand how bears are using the valley bottom areas and where and when they are occupying areas near the railway, what foods they are using adjacent to the railway and where and when they’re using other areas of the park away from the railway.”
Five grizzlies still had functioning GPS collars when they headed into the den last fall. Two of the new bears that were captured and fitted with collars this spring are the offspring of bear 64 – the famed 24-year-old female bear that has not been seen since last fall.
The project is linked to a $1 million Parks Canada-Canadian Pacific Railway joint action plan to try to prevent the deaths of grizzly bears on the tracks through Banff and Yoho.
Trains are the single biggest killer of grizzly bears in Banff National Park. There have been 14 known grizzly bears deaths on the railway in Banff and Yoho since 2000, but that number does not take into account bears that may be struck but never found.
Grizzly bears are considered a threatened species in Alberta, with estimates there are fewer than 700 grizzlies province-wide. In Banff National Park, there are estimated to be about 60 bears.
While there were no human-caused grizzly bear deaths in Banff last year, in the last four years there have been six grizzly bear railway mortalities and two highway deaths in Banff, Yoho and Kootenay. Parks Canada was also forced to destroy an aggressive grizzly.
By comparison, there were a total of 31 known grizzly bear deaths on provincial lands in Alberta in 2013, which is double the previous year’s number of bear deaths and the highest in a decade.
Parks Canada officials say the issue of railway-related wildlife mortality is complex.
It can include the presence of grain, bear behaviour, using the tracks as a travel route, and conditions adjacent to the railway such as seasonal bear foods, habitat quality, carcasses, terrain, travel conditions and snow conditions.
Beyond the collaring project, other projects as part of the joint action plan include vegetation clearing, investigation of fire away from the tracks to draw bears away, grain taste aversion trials and the use of video to determine bear behaviour ahead of oncoming trains.
The plan also speaks to the development of test fences at certain hot spots.
Hunt said many research projects are currently underway, with some being done internally by Parks Canada and others by researchers at the University of Alberta.
“There’s certainly bears that are definitely using areas previously burned, like the Fairholme and Sawback areas, and while that’s not unexpected, it’s nice to see that working,” he said.
“Other bears tend to spend time moving right up and down the main road and railway corridor and that varies with individuals. We’re looking at a whole lot of ideas.”
The goal of the project is to have 10 to 12 functioning collars on air at any given time, though wildlife experts don’t want to subject individual bears to the stressful immobilization process any more than twice over the course of the study, unless necessary.
Hunt said Parks Canada wildlife experts Steve Michel and Brianna Burley, who have been leading most of the trapping work this spring, and other staff, have the most up-to-date training possible.
“We’re happy we’ve managed to handle that many bears without incident. It’s not something we take lightly,” he said. “It’s dangerous work and it’s risky for the bears and it takes a lot of effort to make sure we’re up to date on animal care procedures.”
