A bear warning is in effect for Banff’s Tunnel Mountain campground after wildlife officials received a report of a bear allegedly damaging a tent in the area.
“We had an incident on Friday (June 13) afternoon or early Friday evening where it appears, we can’t say with 100 per cent certainty, but it appears a bear made contact with an unoccupied tent and caused some damage to it, said Steve Michel, human/wildlife conflict specialist with Banff National Park. “The site was unoccupied at the time and there was no one around to verify exactly what happened, but the best evidence that we have would indicate that the damage was likely caused by a bear.”
Several bears have been known by parks officials to be frequenting the area over the last several days. “We’ve had a couple of our newly marked young, sub-adult grizzly bears, their numbers are 144 and 148 – a three-and-a-half year old male and three-and-a-half year old female,” Michel said. “These are both likely offspring of grizzly bear 64. They’ve both occasionally passed through that area over the last several days and both of them were not far way from this location – a few hours after this incident took place, so it’s a possibility it may have been one of them.
“There has also been a few reports on unmarked black bears also frequenting that area. This is the only incident we’ve had at the campground, we haven’t had any reports of aggressive behaviour or any animals getting into food or any kinds of incidents concerning other than this one isolated incident with the property damage to the tent, but we did want to issue a warning to people so they had a greater awareness that there have been bears frequenting that area, and that’s likely related to the fact that it has been a very prolonged spring with lots of snow still up high and the bears are all concentrated at the lower elevation still.”
Banff National Park particularly wants people to be vigilant managing attractants at their campsite.
“To flag for people what attractants would be, we’re talking obviously food and garbage, that’s what most people think about, but it’s really anything that has an odour associated with it,” Michel said. “Coolers, whether they’re empty, beverage containers, even if they’re sealed or empty – they all have odours associated with them. Certainly pet food, any kind of dishware and cutlery all those types of items – even if it’s clean, it has odours associated with it.
“Any sort of cosmetic products will carry quite a strong odour, and any of these items can cause a bear to come to a site and investigate. All of those items need to be securely locked away in a hard-sided vehicle or in the trunk of a car. We’re asking people to be very vigilant right now because there is more bear activity than normal in the area.”
Michel added the public needs to remember bears have a phenomenal sense of smell and they key in on anything that has an odour and will investigate it. “Even though the item smells completely clean to us, anything that is associated with food preparation will always have an odour with it –even if the item is clean it still needs to be kept in a secure place,” Michel said.
Banff National Park asks the public to always report bear sightings promptly to the 24-hour dispatch centre at (403) 762-1470.
