With bears emerging from their dens as spring arrives in the Rockies, conservation officers in Kananaskis Country are getting ready to begin their annual aversive conditioning program.
The program targets grizzly bears in the provincial park that feed on the side of the road to encourage them to move into the woods when people are around.
With 50 grizzly bears in K-Country and eight million visitors a year, Conservation Officer Randy Ramsden said the program aims to teach bears how to react and keep people safe in bear country.
“The aversion program is the longest running aversion program in North America, it has been running in Kananaskis consistently since the late ’80s,” Ramsden said during a talk at the annual Bear Day event. “I call our bears our students because we teach them continuously – we teach them where they can be and can’t be.”
This year, the program begins with 24 collared bears, 15 females with 16 cubs and nine male bears. Ramsden explained male grizzly bears have a larger range and travel more, therefoe they may not benefit from the aversive conditioning program.
“The females that are living in the area and their cubs are usually who we target to enter the program and teach them how to live safely here,” he said. “We want to teach our bears that they don’t want to be around people, that whenever they are around people it is going to be a negative experience.”
Conservation officers use pain stimulus and loud noises as aversive conditioning when collared bears are at the side of the road and people are nearby. Ramsden said the negative experience is only applied when people are nearby, to train the bears to run into the woods when they see vehicles and people.
“I understand how beautiful bears are and how nice it is to see them, but bear jams (traffic jams caused by motorists stopping to see bears) cause both bad teaching for our bears and bad training for our bears,” he said. “It is dangerous for them. A lot of our bears get hit roadside during bear jams.
“We will continue with all that loud noise and pain stimulus until it runs up into cover and once it gets up into cover, then we pull all that off and it gets real quiet and peaceful.
“What we want them to do is remember that experience and that when they were around people it was painful, it was loud and there were dogs barking and people yelling, but when (they get) into cover it was peaceful.
“Grizzly bears are very intelligent and they learn quickly, so one or two negative experiences with us will get them thinking ‘I don’t want to be around people,’ and that is the basis of the program. We want them to look at humans or look at a camper or look at a vehicle and go ‘I remember what happened last time, my butt was hurting, people were yelling at me and all this bad stuff was happening until I ran into the trees.’ ”
He added removing bears from their ecosystem isn’t a successful strategy to deal with grizzly and human interaction.
There are a variety of items used as pain stimulus including rubber bullets, pain balls, and bean bags for bigger bears. Ramsden also uses bangers and yelling in addition to Karelian bear dogs.
The dogs are brought in by the Wind River Institute out of Montana to participate in the program during summer months. Both Tourism Parks and Recreation and Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development provide money for the dogs to be in over the past decade. From 2010-14 TPR provided $74,000 in funding, while AESR provided $468,246 for the program over the same time period.
Ramsden said there isn’t enough manpower in K-Country to have their own Karelian bear dog.
“We just haven’t had the officers available in the district to take that on, but it has been discussed,” he said. “Where we are specifically in our district is we have a lot of specialized shifting that happens, so you can be on bear aversion one week or in the backcountry hiking to backcountry cabins another week. So it is very hard with the manpower we have.”
In addition to targeting the collared bears roadside, there are also areas in the park that are designated as no-go for bears, or red zones, like camping and day-use areas. Ramsden said if a bear is in a red zone the team goes in with Wind River and the bear dogs and force the bear to leave.
Ramsden encouraged people to not stop their vehicles when they see bears on the side of the road.
“With education comes knowledge, so if you can help us out, there are a lot grizzly bears in the Kananaskis area. If you see a grizzly bear, just enjoy it. We ask that you don’t slow down and don’t stop.”
He added keeping dogs on a leash in the park and managing food attractants are also important to keeping grizzly bears and people safe.
