Couple Killed, Along With Their Dog, By Aggressive Grizzly Bear at Canadian National Park
Grizzly bears have been in the news at Banff National Park in Canada. In the last few days, there have been at least three grizzly-related i...
Grizzly bears have been in the news at Banff National Park in Canada. In the last few days, there have been at least three grizzly-related incidents. The final incident ended up with two people dead.
Banff is a place where people are so familiar with various bears that they give them affectionate names.
On September 29th, Grizzly Bear No. 122, known affectionately as "The Boss," was caught eating crab apples in somebody's back yard that week - and "bluff charging" at people. Banff is about an hour and half drive from Calgary. It's located at Latitude 51, By comparison, Wrangell-St. Elias Park is at Latitude 62, much farther north.
The Calgary Herald wrote about the apple-eating bear: "The big bruin's behavior is concerning, as bears that become food-conditioned or habituated to urban areas may act aggressively toward humans..."
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Finally, on Friday, the worst happened, in a distant and remote part of the park. A couple visitiing Banff – camping along with their dog in the wilderness – was attacked and killed by a grizzly. Apparently Parks Canada, the governing agency, got an alert from a GPS device that there was trouble.
Although it was still September, "Weather conditions at the time did not allow for helicopter use," according to a Parks Canada spokesperson. Responders had to hike in all night overland. When they got to the site, they found that the couple and the dog were dead.
Local people told the Calgary Herald that there had been spring frosts that had frozen berry blossoms, and a shortage of berries, which made the bear search for food. The grizzly was killed.
