After being relocated 70 kilometres away from the Jasper townsite last year, a mama grizzly and her two yearling cubs have returned to their old stomping grounds in valley bottom of the Henry House area.
This has prompted Jasper National Park officials to keep the Lac Beauvert access road gate down at Old Fort Point Road indefinitely.
“You can still travel through there on foot, on a bike, anything that rolls other than a vehicle,” said James McCormick, human-wildlife conflict and co-existence specialist with Parks Canada.
“It’s all right for folks to go through there. What we're trying to avoid is big jams that happen if there's cars in that area and the bears are roadside. That just increases that habituation that we're trying to avoid there. We can manage people that are on bikes and on foot much easier, but it’s more of a challenge to manage the vehicles there.”
The family unit of three was relocated last year after an incident that occurred during the last week of July 2023. The grizzlies approached picnickers at both Lake Annette and Lake Edith, forcing the people to scatter for safety while leaving the food behind for the bears’ enjoyment.
Prior to that, the mama – identified as Grizzly 222 – had been observed in the valley bottom and around the townsite, reportedly exhibiting ease and comfort around people.
A few days after the picnic incident, Parks Canada’s human-wildlife conflict team members captured the trio in a family trap and fitted the mother with a GPS collar. They were then relocated to a southern area of the park and were observed along the Icefields Parkway (Highway 93N) near the boundary between Jasper and Banff national parks.
Staff were on the ground when the mama came down from Maligne Lake down to the Medicine Lake area.
The fact that they are back closer to the townsite indicates how habituated they are to this area and its food sources. There haven’t been any negative interactions yet, but the bears are still very comfortable around people, McCormick said, noting that they have been observed grazing around the golf course at Jasper Park Lodge.
“We've been watching them. We're maintaining them, keeping them away from high human-use areas. They've been feeding around in the periphery on green vegetation, and we're just also helping to manage any sort of human attractant at the popular picnic sites, like Lake Annette and Lake Edith too, making sure there's nothing available for them to access accidentally.”
He advised everyone to adhere to Parks Canada’s wildlife safety guidelines, which state that the minimum safe distance from any bear is 100 metres. Travel in groups, supervise your children, keep dogs on leashes, make noise and carry bear spray.
Report bears in town or any wildlife interactions (including concerning wildlife activity or dead animals) immediately to Parks Canada Dispatch 24 hours a day at 780-852-6155.
