Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Alberta's Grizzlies a declining population?

Hey Spongerob -

I'm with you all the way in your analysis, including on the biologists mostly - having been one. But i do believe the bears are going. Not all of the biologists are as you describe (I wasn't) but yeah, I would say most are.

The thing is, the grizzly experts here are unanimous - the bears are in decline, and these aren't all government dudes. A lot of these guys are good independent men and women who just love bears - and may hunt them, too. If i had one doctor tell me i had diabetes, i'd get a second opinion - if ten or twenty told me the same thing, i'd get insulin. Also, it makes sense - grizzlies don't like us, and Alberta ain't what she used to be in the back country!

If you're seeing more, my take is this: you can be in an area where there's a hundred predators that are being hunted and hardly ever see one, and in an area where there's only ten that aren't and see them all the time.

Well, i could be wrong, but i doubt it. Alberta's been hard used, and hard used places loose their grizzlies. It just makes sense to me. Thanks for responding - I hope you're right on your take on the bears, mind-you!

JBurner,

Transplanting some things has made the world a better place, and transplanting others has also screwed up a lot of the world.

I live in Montana, the state south of Alberta. Most of Montana has been glaciated but most recently it was covered with the same glaciers that scraped Alberta. Yet 200 years ago that same glacier-scraped country was full of grizzly bears when Lewis and Clark came through, because it was a fantastic natural grassland that supported elk and bison in vast numbers. Today that country grows a lot of wheat and cows instead, and grizzlies are making their way back into it because there is still plenty to eat. They won't ever become abundant again, however, because people won't tolerate them.

Alberta's grizzlies aren't disappearing because they don't have enough to eat. They're disappearing because a lot of their former mountain country has been logged, and the rerst of Alberta has far more humans than it did 50 or 100 years ago.

I clearly remember when the last few grizzlies west of Calgary and outside the forest reserve were shot back in the 70's.
One local artist who lived near the Bragg Creek dump poped Mom and the kids and a local rancher shot an old male along the Elbow. I had been seeing this same bear for a while up on Two Pine. After that I only found a few tracks up in the Elbow and Sheep forest reserves for a long time. They may have come back a bit since then but while I grew up in Bragg Creek, Calgary was only 1/5 what it is today. One bear can leave a lot of tracks.....just too many 1 acres homesteads west of Calgary these days.

They are still here. I live in Bragg Creek and I have even seen them as far east as Redwood Meadows. The funny thing is 99% of Bragg Creek residents will tell you there isn't a griz within 300 miles. And those 99% are wrong.

I figured you did and believe me it was a great place to grow up. I could spend weeks fishing up West Bragg and see no one. You can't say that today. No doubt there could be a rare GB occurance any where and Bragg Creek being no exception. Still, if your seeing lots of grizzlies, your either seeing the same bear over and over again or perhaps your seeing brown blackies. Sorry to doubt you but I fail to see how there are more grizzlies in Bragg Creek than 35 years ago when only a fraction of the land was devided into small residential lots.
Since BC is only 100 miles west there are "lots" of grizzlies within 300 miles of Bragg Creek.

Hi Tangozulu. You are right about Bragg Creek being a great place. As far as the bears go yes there are a lot of brown phase black bears here. About one in 8 by my count. There is no mistaking a griz however. I don't think any of our grizzlies are "residents". One of the local ranchers told me that they seem to pass through a couple times a year and when they are around, they are not all that hard to find. That is my experience too.

Here's another reason bears are on their way out in Alberta: one year working up in the northwest of the province, in the best Grizzly range outside the mountains and tundra, we came across two dead grizzlies just lying there rotting. One had been eating by the side of the road, likely, and some good ol' boy who never would've got within 200 miles of the place a couple decades ago before all the oil and gas roads, killed it. Then another larger grizzly was apparently attracted by the smell and came out later, and some good ol' boy - maybe the same genius - killed that one too. And left 'em to rot. Happens more than most people realize. So often, in fact, that if the wardens know of a grizzly eating some carcass close to access, they will post a guard to save the bear.

Mule deer - we've screwed a lot of things, that's for sure! Many people don't realize it, but at one time these plains we share had a couple species of grizzlies, a couple species of bison, camels, lions, a couple of types of wolves... etc. By the time we got here, even though it was still teaming with life, the diversity was already way down.

As for Alberta, i would have liked to have been here in Andy Russel's time or before - when men were still men even if they didn't have a pickup truck and a quad, and still went hunting without 'em, too.

I wouldn't think lumberiung itself would damage grizzly bear numbers in Alberta. I would think opening the forest to sunlight would encourage the growth of berries and make things better for the bears - except for the problem of access brought in by the roads and the fact that the new growth at the edge of the roads pulls the bears out to where they can be poached.

I did not know Andy Russel but I had dinner with him late in his life once and he seemed kind of nervous and furtive. I think he was being pressured by his publisher to become a "greenie" in order to better sell his books because 70% of the market for such books are women.

At one time he wrote some great grzzly bear hunting stories for Outdoor Life.

His son takes big money from anti-hunter Robert Schad in order to make films and seems to have gone right off the rails. I am sure Andy is rolling in his grave.

I have heard but cannot confirm that the greatest developmental bugger up in Alberta was the damming and flooding of the winter big horn sheep range at the head waters of the Oldman River.

I have seen two very old photos of rams take there that were allegedly over 50 inches (one was supposed to be 53 inches)and allegedly had 19 inch bases.

The horns were so thick that the sheep looked abnormal. I think Andy Russel mentioned one of them in a book and said the horns were lost in a fire.

About a year ago I saw photos of another old and lost head (but wide like a dall or stone head) that were 52.5 inches but they were from the headwaters of the Mitchell River in B.C. and had slimmer bases.

No doubt the finest big horn range on earth and maybe the genetics have already been lost. But possibly the dams build up the silt and soil and if you could get rid of the dams maybe the new range would be even better than the old.

I think Charlie Russel is one of the very few greenies not driven by ego. His approach to bear stgudy is definately not my cup of tea but I wish him well. His father ran the total gambit of hunter, outfiter and finally preservationist that many tend to follow. I certainly can understand his sadness of all the changes taking place.

Most of these media outdoors people who are supposed to be hunters turned conservationists are bogus but they do get pressured to play that role so by their financial backers (publishers and film producers) because their market is women and young girls most of whom do not hunt. It all has to do with marketing.

Its a format that was begun in British newspapers 65 years ago and it still recycled today. They say "so and so was a hunter turned naturalist or conservationist".

The format was used to plant the idea that hunting is bad by inferring this guy (in his young and foolish days) used to hunt, and then he got older and wiser and saw the light and then turned against hunting and became a conservationist.

The best example, was tiger hunter Jim Corbett. He was the orginal tiger conservationist but mainstream media in his day was uncomfortable with the idea that Corbett liked to hunt tigers and was also the major tiger conservationist of his time. Corbett National Park is named after him and so is a race of tigers.

But the British media repeatedly called him a "hunter turned conservationist" to divide his love of hunting from his life as a conservationist.

The fact is Corbett was trophy hunter and hunted big cats until he was 78 years old. He never once changed his behavior. If you look at his book The Man-eaters of Kumoan there is a picture of the "Bachelor of Powlagrah."

The Bachelor was a very big and harmless Bengal tiger that Corbett hunted soley for a trophy. He hunted it for ten years before he killed it. It was not a man-eater.

He then moved to Kenya and became the director of a hunting safari company. He devoted his life to shooting lions and leopards for sport in Africa until he was 78 years old.

He never was a "hunter turned conservationist". He always was a "hunter and conservationist."

I got that information from the late David Ommaney, a Tanzanian PH, who was born in India, who knew Corbett in India, and whom Jim Corbett helped hunt big cats in Kenya.

Jim Corbett got David Ommaney his first PH job in Kenya. Ommaney became famous for testing the 458 for Winchester and at one time he was in all their ads.

Andy Russell's son is financially owned by Robert Schad, the same man who financially owns David Suzuki. The same Robert Schad who closed down the spring bear hunt in Ontario. Whoever pays the piper calls the tune.

I do not take the young Russel's bear knowledege and preaching at all seriously. He has about as much credibility as David Suzuki has with global warming which is essentially none. The fact you appear on TV does not mean you know what you are talking about and the young Russel is a light weight compared to his late father.

No doubt the bear cuddlers end up getin a lot of their pets killed by less tollerent sorts.

It's unfortunate that our culture can't just accept people as the complex critters they are. We want everyone to be easily definable (and Alberta is one of the worst places for wanting this.) You're either Liberal or Conservative. Hunter or Antihunter. Conservationist or Developmentalist.

Well, it ain't so simple in real life, unless you're dealing with simpletons. I've voted both Conservative and Liberal and consider myself neither. I am a hunter who is totally anti-hunting when it comes to the way many people do it today. I am a conservationist, too. That's one I just don't get - why people don't understand you can be a hunter and a conservationist. If i'm a grizzly hunter (I am not, but for example) and decide to quit hunting them for conservation reasons and what's more tell the world they need to be conserved, don't then expect me not to shoot a deer or a moose for meat.

+1...Hunters should always lead the way in conservation. All the original conservationests were hunters too.

Dear Gula,

People are complex and the best thing is to let them do their own thing as long as they are not hurting other people.

I don't mind fudge stuffers stuffing fudge (there is a good limerick somewhere in that tongue tripping line) as long as they do not try to bring innocent children into the fold.

I also don't mind people wanting to be animal lovers. They can do as they please. My wife likes her cats and dogs and I would never interfere with that.

But I don't like animal lovers trying to change the law to make me behave like them either by either taking away my guns or by banning hunting without a reason.

So when people try to change the law to make me behave like them , for no good reason, they become my enemy, and I will attack them.

Unfortunately you sometimes end up in conflict with people you like which is common in any kind of conflict.

My wife does not mind me shooting deer but she responds to the teary (and possibly photo shopped) eyes of harp seal pups and would probably give money to stop the harp seal hunt if I let animal rights beggars anywhere near the front door which I won't do.

I toss them back on the street.

Its a mistake to be tolerant, to turn the other cheek when people try to take your guns or stop your hunting. Power only respects power. If someone attacks you attack them. That is what the NRA does.

It works.

I realize the topic is the decline of the grizzly population in Alberta...

Yet, hunted (black) bears may climb into your dumpster as well!

I have an hour-long, home-made video that my wife and a close (lady) friend made near Hinton several years ago on a Western Canada trip (daughter of the friend lived in that area)by auto. Some traffic was stopped on the highway, and they stopped too. The reason? A beautiful silver-tip was digging on the side of a hill not more than 50 yds from the highway! Our friend got out of the car, crossed the ditch to within 30 yds, or so, of the big grizz and video-taped it for nearly an hour as it dug out roots, sat in the dug-out area and munched on them! Then it slowly ambled off, taking about 15 minutes to do so as it finally disappeared into the forest. It truly was an award-winning video encounter! A beautiful bear unperturbed by the presence of autos and people! I think--from that evidence--that there's a lot to be learned (yet) about the behavior and future of grizzles... just like there is to be learned and understood about blacks.

As an illustration of that, the black bear population in Ontario is said to be (in American based hunting magazines)75,000! That's a political number from the Ministry of Natural Resources, which has it's own politically correct agenda. The REAL number is about twice that according to some studies by biologists without a political agenda!

I wonder... could it be possible that something like that is happening in Alberta re: grizzly populations?

Bob

www.bigbores.ca

Grizzly bears can not be reproduced like Blackies. Once gone I suspect reintroductions may be impossable. Not to mention grizzly habitat is usually undisturbed wilderness, blackies live next to people all the time. On the other hand Blackies can probably be introduced succsefully.

Grizzly bears do reproduce more slowly than black bears but they can be re-introduced to their old range as easily as any other animal if the have enough food and protection.

They have just completed a very succesful re-colonization of NW Montana by themselves.

They are also intelligent and flexible and can live close to people. The idea that they need wilderness is a myth. The reason they ended up in wildreness is because they were killed off in populated areas.

They would recolonize the inhabited praires by themselves if we let them.

They have already moved east onto the prairies in Montana and east from the Rockies to near Sundre, Alberta.

They have no problem living near people. They do it all the time in Alaska. Its just that they are in many cases too dangerous to have in close proximity to people.

There are not many bears near Sundre but they have bumped off two people in the last two years.

If they are going to get shot when they get close to civilization it means they need wilderness areas. A mature productrive female needs 7 years........she can die in 7 seconds.
Most eastward mogration is along large river corridors.
They put an electric fense around the Whitehorse dump and they needed to shoot 25 hungry GB aroun town that year.

tangozulu,

My point was NOT that they reproduce like blacks... that's common knowledge that they don't... my POINT was that if a mature grizz was unperturbed by the presence of people and autos in a semi-wilderness area, what does that say about them living in relatively close proximity to humans in quasi-developed areas? I think Jburner has probably answered that.

ALSO, if the Government of Ontario, in its Ministry of Natural Resources lies about the number of black bears in this province because of pressure from higher up, isn't that a potential commentary on the actions of officials in other provinces who report to elected members of government who want to keep PETA people happy?

As pointed out, the Ontario spring bear hunt was shut down for no other reason than political protection for Premier Harris. That's a fact, and it's well known! Couldn't something like that happen in Alberta? I'm NOT suggesting the grizz may NOT be in danger in Alberta, but how would you know for SURE??

Bob

www.bigbores.ca