Relocation didn't work for grizzly bear 107, as the young female walked about 50 kilometres from the Ghost Waiparous area, where she had been relocated on May 20, back to Canmore last week.

The small grizzly, weighing about 80 pounds, went right back to the Silver Tip neighbourhood where she got in trouble in the first place, wandering around houses and on the golf course in her search for food.

On Thursday, (June 17), Fish and Wildlife officers darted and captured the young bear and relocated her further this time, to the Grand Cache area, where they hope she will stay.

"She was back to doing what she was doing before," Jon Jorgenson, a wildlife biologist with Fish and Wildlife said. "She was very comfortable around human activity and facilities. We were having a difficult time getting her out of there."

They wanted to keep the bear in the local grizzly bear management area the first time. She still has ear tag transmitters, but it will be difficult to keep track of her now that she is so far away, Jorgenson said.

"There's a reasonable chance that she won't survive there," Jeff Gailus, conservationist and author of The Grizzly Manifesto said. "She's very small, which is probably why she was hanging around golf courses and trying to get human food. Because she was hungry."

The number of bear relocations happening in the Bow Valley mean we are not doing a good enough job keeping bears from becoming habituated, Gailus said.

"We decided to build a big town and three golf courses in bear habitat," Gailus said. "And so it's our obligation to do everything we can to make sure bears don't become food habituated. If that means having a full-time bear aversive conditioning team working around the clock, then that's what we need to do."

Fish and Wildlife officers respond when a bear shows up on a golf course in the Bow Valley , but there are not enough staff and money to do what needs to be done, Gailus said.

"It's not like we're doing nothing," Gailus said. "But we're not doing enough. And that is consistent with grizzly bear management efforts throughout the province."

If you do see a bear, Bow Valley WildSmart asks that you report it by calling 403-591-7755.

Further reading on this topic:

Bear 107 Removed from Bow Valley, by Dave Whitefield, Rocky Mountain Outlook, May 26th, 2010

Editor's Note: For further information regarding reloction, please click here....