A large black bear killed a smaller bear to feast and fatten up ahead of a long winter’s hibernation, prompting a closure of a backcountry area in Banff National Park to give the bruin space and security.
Parks Canada wildlife officials say the black bear was first observed feeding on the smaller back bear carcass right on the trail on Sept. 28.
“This should be a good piece of protein for a bear to feed on before denning,” said Blair Fyten, a human-wildlife coexistence specialist for Banff National Park.
“Especially at this time of the year, bears are kind of looking for pretty much anything that they can find out there to eat before they go into the denning season.”
Parks Canada has closed the trail connecting Pharaoh Lake, Black Rock Lake, Sphinx Lake and the surrounding area and anyone caught violating the order could be charged under the Canada National Parks Act and face a fine of up to $25,000.
Bears killing other bears is not unusual in nature and there have been several cases documented in Banff National Park.
“This does occur in nature where bears kill each other. They do it either as a food source or for mating rights,” said Fyten, noting grizzly bears sometimes kill cubs, which is known as infanticide.
“I suspect that’s probably what the demise of that dead was, likely killed by this bear.”
In this most recent case, Fyten said there was a report from a hiker travelling on the Pharaoh Lake Trail on Sept. 26.
“She bumped into a dead carcass on the trail, a bear carcass, and looked off to her side and noticed another bear,” he said.
“It was very close to her just standing in the woods so she backed out of there. There was no aggressive nature shown by the bear that was there.”
After the hiker reported the incident, Parks Canada wildlife staff were flown to the backcountry area by Alpine Helicopters.
“They found the carcass on the trail and they observed a black coloured black bear standing over the carcass and it didn’t want to move … it was kind of holding its ground,” Fyten said.
The dead bear was smaller, but Fyten said the bear feeding on the carcass was quite a bit bigger.
“The black bear that was observed from a helicopter on the carcass was fairly chunky, a good size black bear,” he said.
Immediately, the Parks Canada team swept the in-and-out trail from Pharaoh Lake to Black Rock Lake and Sphinx Lake for any hikers that may still be in the area.
“It’s not a loop system so we were able to close that on the bottom end there and make sure it was safe,” Fyten said.
A decision was made to leave the carcass there for the bear to feed and fatten up ahead of hibernation.
Fyten said black bears in this region can go into the den as early as mid-October, particularly females with cubs.
“In this case, we just decided to leave the carcass there because it's an important food source for carnivores out there,” he said.
“We know before bears head into the den they’re looking for any opportunity out there for food, and food gets to be more scarce as the fall goes on.”
The closure will remain in place for 10 to 14 days.
“The carcass should probably get cleaned up pretty quick,” Fyten said.
“If everyone is kind of cleaned up and there’s no attractants left, then we will open up the trail.”
There have been very few reports of bears in the valley bottoms over the past couple of weeks, although a black bear with two cubs has been spotted near the Banff townsite in the past week.
Fyten said two collared black bears are spending quite a bit of time up higher in the mountains over the last three weeks.
“There’s no berries down here right now, so they're shifted over to other berries up higher up,” he said, noting he has observed grouse berries around tree line.
Parks Canada reminds campers in the backcountry to store food properly and put food in storage bins.
Likewise, in the Banff townsite, the agency gives a timely reminder to make sure yards are clean of attractants, including fruit on trees.
“We didn’t really have a lot of buffaloberry this year and I thought we'd be having or seeing a little bit more issues with bears around the townsite, but it's been relatively quiet,” he said.
