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All Grizzly Bears Articles
Wildlife officials in Canmore, Alta., say fewer bear sightings in the past week mean their efforts have been paying off.
Several residents had reported seeing grizzly bears in town in recent weeks.
Since then, officers have been cutting down berry bushes in the area and have set several traps.
"We're going to be continuing that control work in the next week or so," said Darcy Whiteside, of the province's Sustainable Resource Development department.
Wolves and bears don't behave well in courtrooms.
But the two big predators are likely to spend the next 18 months there as their advocates and enemies try to untangle them from the federal Endangered Species Act.
Last week, Montana wildlife managers decided to appeal U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy's Aug. 5 decision placing the gray wolf back under federal protection. Meanwhile, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials in Missoula appealed another Molloy ruling that prevented state management of Yellowstone ecosystem grizzly bears.
EDMONTON - Of all the places to meet a celebrity, the backwoods of Sweden might seem to be among the least likely.
That's what Gordon Stenhouse thought when he travelled to the Scandinavian wilderness in April to conduct research on grizzly bears.
One day, on a field trip, Stenhouse's camp received a surprise visitor. The new arrival did not have brown fur, a long snout and dark eyes, but instead came with blond hair, blue eyes and a face recognizable from countless broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service filed an appeal earlier this month to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the relisting of the estimated 600 grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem.
“The Yellowstone grizzly population is increasing at 4 to 7 percent per year and is recovered and the agencies are committed to spending more than $3 million per year to maintain this healthy, recovered population,” said Chris Servheen, Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator, in a statement.
Yellowstone's grizzlies are going to be particularly hungry this fall, and that means more dangerous meetings with humans in a year that is already the area's deadliest on record.
Scientists report that a favorite food of many bears, nuts from whitebark pine cones, is scarce. So as grizzlies look to put on some major pounds in preparation for the long winter ahead, scientists say, they will be looking for another source of protein — meat — and running into trouble along the way.
Three bears spotted in Peaks of Grassi
A spate of grizzly bear activity in a Canmore neighbourhood has wildlife officials warning residents to bear-proof their homes.
Grizzly bears have been spotted mere metres from houses, eating buffalo berries, dogwood and other food in yards adjacent to the Peaks of Grassi community, a wildlife corridor.
Some berry-laden bushes -- prime bear food -- are growing directly behind and in between homes in the neighbourhood.
WHITEFISH - Forget Capistrano's swallows. Pay no attention to those salmon returning home from the ocean. Monarch butterflies? Yeah, right.
When it comes to the mystery of migration, those critters have got nothing on a pair of Montana grizzly bears born and raised north of Whitefish.
Wayne Kasworm, a bear biologist working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, penned the bears in big metal traps, carted them across whole mountain ranges and dropped them off deep in a far-flung wilderness.
A Kaslo-based wildlife biologist is asking the B.C. government to look at some new data when it decides whether it will approve the controversial Jumbo Glacier Resort.
In the works for nearly two decades, the $45 million ski resort development would be built in the Jumbo Valley in the Purcell Mountains. The province is currently deciding whether to create a resort municipality at the proposed development site.
Two bears were found dead Tuesday in the east central section of Yellowstone National Park near Fishing Bridge, the park said in a news release.
A brown adult male grizzly, weighing 576 ½ pounds, was discovered dead about 50 yards off the road one-half mile south of LeHardy Rapids, north of Fishing Bridge. A necropsy to determine its cause of death will be performed in Bozeman.
Trampling car hoods and breaking into houses, bears have been at it again this summer in Durango . But city officials say a new law is doing some good in reducing the food available in town.
Bear Smart Durango's Bryan Peterson said foraging bears have calmed since this month's monsoons helped sprout new natural food outside town. But it was a crazy June and July.
Rare sightings of huge bears in region are backed up by pictures of footprints, scat evidence
Two grizzly bears have been spotted recently near Strathcona Park, a rare appearance by the big bears on Vancouver Island.
"We have confirmed sightings from very reliable sources," said Kim Brunt, senior wildlife biologist in the provincial Fish and Wildlife Branch.
A grizzly bear population study released Tuesday afternoon by Mines Management concludes that there are “very likely significantly more grizzly bears in the Cabinet Mountains than has been previously reported.”
That strong statement no doubt will catch the eye of the region’s wildlife biologists. If the report proves true, it would indicate that grizzly bear recovery efforts in the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem have worked.
BRADY — Grizzly bears were moving through wide-open wheat fields south of Brady on Saturday — just as farmers were preparing to harvest — as the threatened species continues to venture farther east into historic plains habitat.
"We've never seen anything like that before," Gus Winterrowd said of a pair of young grizzlies he saw in a field at his place three miles south of Brady. "Wasted the whole morning watching them."
Brady is about 50 miles north of Great Falls on Interstate 15. It's known for its grain, not grizzlies.
NEAR LEAVENWORTH, Wash. - Researchers Paula MacKay and Rob Long are on their way back into the deep woods in the Icicle Creek Canyon. They were here two weeks ago, stretching a strand of barbed wire between trees surrounding a pile of sticks covered in a putrid blend of blood and chicken guts. They hope curious bears will go to investigate and leave behind a strand of hair on one of the barbs.
MISSOULA — When confronting an angry grizzly bear in the woods, the last thing you want to worry about is the fine print on your can of bear spray.
But as customers scour the shelves for protection in the wake of recent fatal bear attacks, the fine print matters.
FAIRBANKS — Denali Borough Mayor Dave Talerico shot and killed a grizzly bear when it charged him this week at the Denali Borough Landfill.
“I just feel horrible,” Talerico said.
A taxidermist who examined the hide later discovered the bear had been shot earlier with a bullet from a .22, the mayor said. When he learned the bear had been wounded earlier, Talerico said he felt a little better about his decision to shoot in the interest of public safety — particularly his own at the time.
Despite recent high-profile attacks by grizzly bears in the Yellowstone area that have killed two people and left two others seriously injured, wildlife officials say human-bear encounters are not on the upswing, and that such events remain "very, very rare."
The most recent attacks occurred last week at a Gallatin National Forest campground east of Cooke City, Mont., near the northeastern corner of Yellowstone National Park (Land Letter, July 29).
University of Alberta researchers are getting a bear's eye view to learn about grizzlies -- a threatened species in the province.
New high-tech collars have been placed on bears, featuring cams and GPS, to take a colour photo every 15 minutes and track the animals’ location every hour.
Disposal of BSE-affected carcasses blamed
Bears have killed his livestock and preyed on sick calves. They tear open silage bags and break into grain bins.
But the real fear for Tony Bruder, a third-generation Twin Butte cattle rancher, is that one day it will be a human at the ugly end of a bear's attention.
He's been chased by a bear while on horseback, and had grizzlies stroll by while he works under farm equipment. He's watched his children head out the back door to catch the school bus, and a bear wander through moments later.
BILLINGS — A grizzly bear that preyed on three campers outside Yellowstone National Park was underweight but not starving, and it was in an area with ample natural food supplies, wildlife officials said Monday as they worked to figure out why the animal attacked.
With the necropsy on the female grizzly still being analyzed, officials had no explanation for what caused the bear to rampage through a campground Wednesday with cubs in tow.
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