A female grizzly bear relocated out of Cochrane last month for getting into backyard chicken coops and beehives has been struck and killed on the Trans-Canada Highway near Dead Man’s Flats.
The sub-adult grizzly was run over at about midnight on Monday (July 4) in the westbound lane of the highway about 100 metres east of the onramp at Dead Man’s Flats – the third grizzly to die in the Bow Valley transportation corridor this year.
A male young-of-the-year grizzly bear cub was hit and killed on the Trans-Canada Highway just east of Dead Man’s Flats on May 20, while an adult male grizzly was struck dead by a train on the tracks just across the road from the Canmore helipad on June 25.
Provincial wildlife officials say there have also been several black bear deaths in the area, noting the latest death was a male black bear also killed on the highway near Dead Man’s Flats on Monday.
“It’s very challenging moving across the transportation corridor,” said Jay Honeyman, a human wildlife conflict biologist with Alberta Environment and Parks.
“The highway is very, very busy and it’s a game of Russian roulette trying to cross the highway with the levels of traffic we’re seeing nowadays.”
Grizzly bears are listed as threatened in Alberta because of the small size of the breeding population, restricted dispersal from adjacent jurisdictions and the expectation that current and future land use and human activity will make it harder for bears to survive.
The bear, which had an ear tag with an identification number of SW091, was one of two bears relocated out of Cochrane in June after getting into chicken coups, gardens, compost piles and gardens.
She was taken to the Burnt Timber area and wildlife officials did not know she had made her way to the Bow Valley until she was found dead on the highway, not too far away from the wildlife underpass east of Dead Man’s.
“We haven’t looked at the camera on the underpass yet,” said Honeyman. “We’ll go have a look and see if she did use the underpass at all.”
A wildlife exclusion fence runs along the area where the grizzly bear was killed; however, Honeyman said there are a few weaknesses in the fence in need of repair.
“Having said that, we’ve had grizzly bears in the past dig under the fences,” he said.
“The fences have never been a 100 per cent solution to prevent bears from crossing. They were very effective with ungulates but less so with bears.”
In 2010, the estimated grizzly bear population is Alberta was approximately 700 to 800 bears. There has not been a population estimate completed since then, although inventory work has been done or is underway in several areas.
The draft 2016-21 Alberta Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan is out for public review until July 15. It puts focus on reducing the amount of human-grizzly conflict and human-caused mortality of grizzly bears.
Provincial statistics show a total of 190 grizzly bears have died at the hands of humans in the last decade. Of the 28 bears killed last year, seven died on the roads and at least another eight bears were killed illegally.
