Humans and bears - Wild encounters

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http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news...in-canmore  
 
CANMORE — An adult male grizzly bear was struck and killed by a train within the town of Canmore on the weekend.
Around 1:10 a.m. Saturday, a Canadian Pacific freight train hit a grizzly bear on the tracks in the mountain town. It was reported to wildlife officials with the province.
“A male grizzly bear was killed,” said Jay Honeyman, human/wildlife conflict specialist with Alberta Environment and Parks. “It’s an unknown bear.
“We didn’t know he was around.”
The 140-kilogram unmarked grizzly bear is the “first reported and confirmed fatal grizzly strike in Alberta in 2016,” according to Jeremy Berry, a spokesman with CP.
Grizzlies in Alberta were listed as threatened in 2010 after it was determined there were only about 700 left in the province, a number that’s currently being updated through various research studies across the province.
The low population led to the suspension of the hunt in 2006 and a recovery strategy aimed at reducing conflicts between bears and people.
Still, an average of 19 bears have been killed annually since the suspension of the hunt — for a total of 190 grizzly bears in the past decade.
Five grizzly bears have already been killed in Alberta this spring, including two in the Bow Valley. On May 20, a motorist hit and killed a grizzly bear cub on the Trans-Canada Highway near Lacs des Arc. 
“The Bow Valley is the place where we have to get the grizzly bear recovery plan for Alberta right,” said Stephen Legault, a program director with Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. “It’s the most densely populated landscape in North America that still has grizzly bears in it — and, if we don’t get it right here, it’s going to be really hard to get it right everywhere else.”

He said there’s also a concern about connectivity for wildlife moving between Banff National Park and Kananaskis.
Several black bears have also died on the nearby roadways, including one on the Trans-Canada Highway last Friday and another on Highway 40 in Kananaskis Country earlier in the spring. 
Two black bears have also been killed on the Trans-Canada Highway in Banff and Yoho national parks, while a third black bear was hit and killed by a train on the railway tracks in Yoho on May 11.

Parks Canada has worked with CP Rail on a joint action plan over the past five years to find solutions to wildlife deaths along the railway tracks after concerns were raised that animals were eating spilled grain along the tracks.

It included fitting about a dozen grizzly bears each year with a GPS collar to track their movements and learn how they use the railway lines and other areas in the park.

Researchers are looking at everything from grain and vegetation along the tracks to design and infrastructure of the railway lines.

The project doesn’t include Canmore, but it’s expected the results will be shared widely once the project is completed this fall.
In Saturday’s grizzly bear death, Honeyman said there was no evidence of food on the tracks.

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