Editor: As most people in the Bow Valley know, this past week bear 148 died.
I have noticed the word ‘harvested’ used in some of the articles I read. She was killed, not harvested. Humans killed her. She was a beautiful bear and although I never met her, I did meet a bear years ago that has a similar story.
Her name was Timberline. She was an older cinnamon black bear who spent most of her life near Banff (her nickname came from the hotel where she was often seen).
In the summer of 2006 she wandered down the valley and into the Nordic Centre area. Maybe the berries were good that year. She had two cubs with her. She made a couple of bluff charges at bikers and part of the Nordic Centre was closed.
As we seem to like to do, blame was cast around … “off-leash dogs are the problem”… being the main scapegoat as usual. I ran into this bear walking near the Nordic Centre. In fact, I came within 30 feet of her cubs as they scurried up a tree. About another 30 ft. down the trail Timberline jumped out and huffed at me and then jumped back in the woods. I backed up quickly and made a big loop to get out of her way.
On my round about walk I came across the tape closing the Georgetown trail, just as two bikers ducked under it and headed down the trail. I phoned Fish and Wildlife about my encounter, I told them that she had handled the encounter well and done exactly what a good bear should, but I suggested they might want to close down more of the area until she moved on.
Two days later they darted her and her cubs. One cub was killed as it fell out of the tree it was in. Timberline was moved, not back to Banff, but down into the Kananaskis and didn’t survive that winter. This was a bear in her early 20s who had spent all her life in Banff and not been a problem bear.
That was 11 years ago and we seem to have learned nothing. In fact, I bet most of the people who read this have never heard of Timberline. I believe we must demand change to the way bears are managed in Alberta.
If bears are busy eating berries, then close trails until they move on. Stop the continued development that gobbles up the landscape and their homes. Educate people about living with bears … from bear spray, to knowing bear signs, to making choices about where you go when you recreate.
Bears will disappear if we don’t change our attitudes and our tolerance for them. There are no problem bears, only problem humans. We learned nothing from Timberline; hopefully we learn something from bear 148.
Lisa Young,
Canmore
