Lake Louise Grizzly Attack
Stephen W. Anderson
Bob Spirko <bsp...@srv1.freenet.calgary.ab.ca> wrote:
> ... "This
>isn't an incident that happens out of the blue," said University
>professor and bear expert Steve Herrero. It seemed clear the bears were
>addicted to human food.
I realize this is a transcript of a newpaper article, but by any chance
do you know if Mr. Herrero said just why this is clear, or was he making
a prima facie assumption based on the fact the bears entered a campground?
SWA
Bob Spirko
Calgary Herald
September 26, 1995
Lake Louise
Tourists Get Bear Scare
Every mountain camper's worst nightmare of a grizzly bear roaring,
ripping and biting its way through the campsite became terrifying reality
for six foreign visitors to the tourist town of Lake Louise early Monday.
A 170-kilogram mother grizzly, accompanied by a cub, made three separate
attacks on three sleeping couples in a campsite a mere 10-minute walk
from the townsite.
Monday night, four people -- two Australian men, one German man and a
woman from Montana -- were in hospitals in Banff and Calgary recovering
from injuries. Their conditions ranged from "stable" to "fair." Two other
women, from Montana and Germany, were treated and released after the attack.
Another man, Steve Edgington, who fled to safety as the bear went on its
3:00 a.m. rampage, said: "There was a lot of scratching and ripping, and
it was close, so I just thought 'Well, my tent's next.'"
Edgington didn't hesitate. "I opened my tent, turned the other way and
just ran. I kept hearing all these people saying, 'Please just help' --
loud screams..." he told CBC Alberta news.
As news of the attack spread, the townsite fell virtually under siege
with hiking rails and campsites closed and police and park wardens
searching the area for the bears.
Banff National Park chief warden Bob Nancy said because the attacks were
unprovoked after a wet summer that ensured there is no shortage of
berries or other appropriate food, he is "leaning strongly towards
destroying both animal."
"If we didn't, it would be putting someone else at risk. It doesn't
matter how far into the wilderness they are relocated."
He said the attack began when two Germans, Algis Provilavicius and his
sister Tanya woke to find their tent "caved in and a bear on top of them,
biting." They kicked and screamed until the grizzly and her cub ran away.
The bears then headed for an adjacent campsite and attacked the Montana
women, collapsing their tent in on them. They too fought off the bears by
kicking and screaming.
Finally the grizzlies turned on the tent of Australian Andrew Brodie and
his male companion who also managed to fight them off and stagger to safety.
Lake Louise locals, used to reports of attacks in the surrounding
Rockies, are shocked that so many people were attacked in the one
incident and that it happened so close to home.
Wardens said indications were the victims stored food properly -- but may
have suffered the consequences of other people's carelessness. "This
isn't an incident that happens out of the blue," said University
professor and bear expert Steve Herrero. It seemed clear the bears were
addicted to human food.
Update: The two grizzlies were later found and destroyed.
Abe D. Lockman
<Pine.A32.3.91.950926...@srv1.freenet.calgary.ab.ca>, Bob
Spirko <bsp...@srv1.freenet.calgary.ab.ca> wrote:
> Calgary Herald
> September 26, 1995
>
> Lake Louise
>
> Tourists Get Bear Scare
{news at 9 details deleted}
> He said the attack began when two Germans, Algis Provilavicius and his
> sister Tanya woke to find their tent "caved in and a bear on top of them,
> biting." They kicked and screamed until the grizzly and her cub ran away.
>
> The bears then headed for an adjacent campsite and attacked the Montana
> women, collapsing their tent in on them. They too fought off the bears by
> kicking and screaming.
>
> Finally the grizzlies turned on the tent of Australian Andrew Brodie and
> his male companion who also managed to fight them off and stagger to safety.
{further details deleted}
Did these tents have tarps underneath, inside, or both?
adl
Bill Cassady
>Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995 16:41:29 -0600
>From: Bob Spirko <bsp...@srv1.freenet.calgary.ab.ca>
BS>Calgary Herald
>September 26, 1995
...........(most of article deleted)....
BS>Wardens said indications were the victims stored food properly -- but may
>have suffered the consequences of other people's carelessness. "This
>isn't an incident that happens out of the blue," said University
>professor and bear expert Steve Herrero. It seemed clear the bears were
>addicted to human food.
Not clear to me, at least. Did they do an autopsy to determine what the
bears had eaten?
Is "human food" human flesh; or food that humans eat?
If the latter, why then did the bears attack the humans,
instead of the humans' food?
If the incident cannot be connected to food gathering behavior -
do bears get PMS?
-Bill
griz...@pacificrim.net
So now all the nice tourists can continue to flock to grizzly country in safely
and serenity, with all the bad bears killed to ensure the tourist dollar is not
lost. When they start "destroying" the idiots that taunt, bait, and in general
mistreat wildlife, then MAYBE it would be okay to kill "problem" bears. Sort
of like the moose that killed that old man outside the store in Alaska after
teenagers were allowed to harrass it unchecked.
GRIZ
griz...@pacificrim.net
> do bears get PMS?
Cute. More likely they just get sick of people...I know I do.
GRIZ
Jerry Groneberg
--
Jerry Groneberg e-mail uq...@freenet.victoria.bc.ca
ca...@freenet.carleton.ca
Fortune favours the brave
Donald Haines
>
> (griz...@pacificrim.net) writes:
> >> If the incident cannot be connected to food gathering behavior -
> >> do bears get PMS?
DakotaKid
<I realize this is a transcript of a newpaper article, but by any chance
do you know if Mr. Herrero said just why this is clear, or was he making
a prima facie assumption based on the fact the bears entered a campground?
>
Mr. Herrero has spent the last thirty years or so studying bears in the
Canadain Rockies as well as other areas of the world. He has written a
fairly interesting scholarly work on the subject, and is generally
regarded as the foremost expert on bear/human encounters.
A friend of mine was in the campground at the time, and her eye witness
account confirms the notion that the sow was undernourished, possibly
sick, and probably habituated to human food because of her condition. Mr.
Herrero provides evidence of this documented conditin in his book.
Too bad about the bears.
Jim Parker
Robert Lindsay
guess everybody already heard about the unexplainable grizzly attack
in banff.
the sow and her cub were captured at the mauling site the next day and
were positively identified as being the responsible pair. they were
unceremoniously shot.
although what exactly prompted the attacks will probably never be known
for sure, an autopsy revealed that the sow weighed only 98 kgs. this is
about 50 kgs under what should have been her normal weight for a female
of her age and condition.
could it have been a case of opportunistic predation by a starving bear?
guess we'll never know for sure.
however, a couple thoughts come to mind about this incident.
the first concerns a story that i came across while doing some historical
research about the hinton area ( just east of jasper n.p. in the foothills
of the rockies ). in an old pamphlet from the dominion forest service of
alberta was an article about bear attacks in the hinton area. now i can't
remember the exact date of the incident but it was most likely around
the 1940's or 1950's. in any case, a fisherman was reported missing and
a subsequent search soon turned up his partially eaten body. the marks
of a struggle in the sand quite clearly indicated that the fisherman
was unexpectedly jumped from behind by a black bear. as this was extremely
unusual behavior for any type of bear, it drew a great deal of
speculation about how such an attack could occur.
the wardens were notified and dispatched to the area to try and find
the culprit. one fellow, carrying his rifle, was walking around the area
very close to the original site; when, for no conscious reason, he
looked behind. following him very closely and quietly was a very
scrawny black bear. in his own words, the warden seems to make it very clear
that the bear meant to attack - and it did. although being charged was
somewhat unsettling, the warden said something to the effect that
the bear was so small and skinny that he almost felt like throwing
away his rifle and attempting to wrestle the animal into submission.
( note : quite plainly then, the attitudes and 'machismo' of the
time are apparent in this report. as they are in many stories of
bear incidents past and present, no doubt. ) a single shot then
killed the bear. an autopsy conducted shortly after turned up parts of
the missing fisherman in the bear's bowels, thus confirming that it
was indeed the one reponsible for the first incident.
predation? or a sort of hunger inspired insanity perhaps? no one knows
for sure. such incidents are very out-of-character and seemingly
unexplainable; fortunately, however, they are also very rare.
the second thought that came to mind was that no matter how small or
scrawny a bear may seem, they are indeed quite powerful. for anyone
lucky enough to have been able to observe the great grizzly close up,
it does not take long to gauge their strength as they routinely
flip over good sized boulders effortlessly in their search for marmots
or other food. topping off that strength are a formidable set of teeth
and claws that can be compared to pitchforks. on strictly one-on-one
terms a human doesn't stand a chance; it is only our technology
that gives us the might - in the form of high-powered rifles - to
overcome the great bear if we desire to.
but, with shrinking habitat, vanishing numbers, and the absolutely unbending
rule that whenever a bear kills or severely injures a human it must die in
return, it becomes obvious that we are not here on its terms - the
bears are here on ours.
can we then accept the responsibility?
opinions are my own..........................................................
Stephen W. Anderson
DakotaKid <dako...@aol.com> wrote:
>Mr. Herrero has spent the last thirty years or so studying bears in the
>Canadain Rockies as well as other areas of the world. He has written a
>fairly interesting scholarly work on the subject, and is generally
>regarded as the foremost expert on bear/human encounters.
>
>A friend of mine was in the campground at the time, and her eye witness
>account confirms the notion that the sow was undernourished, possibly
>sick, and probably habituated to human food because of her condition. Mr.
>Herrero provides evidence of this documented conditin in his book.
>
>Too bad about the bears.
Yes. And thank you for the additional information.
I'll have to read his book. It is still unclear to me (though it seems to
be clear to him) that these bears entered that campground and attacked
those campers because of habituation to human food.
Regards,
SWA
Brian Schack
Stephen> In article <44pu1o$i...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, DakotaKid
Stephen> <dako...@aol.com> wrote:
>> Mr. Herrero has spent the last thirty years or so studying
>> bears in the Canadain Rockies as well as other areas of the
>> world. He has written a fairly interesting scholarly work on
>> the subject, and is generally regarded as the foremost expert
>> on bear/human encounters.
>>
>> A friend of mine was in the campground at the time, and her eye
>> witness account confirms the notion that the sow was
>> undernourished, possibly sick, and probably habituated to human
>> food because of her condition. Mr. Herrero provides evidence
>> of this documented conditin in his book.
>>
>> Too bad about the bears.
Stephen> Yes. And thank you for the additional information.
Stephen> I'll have to read his book. It is still unclear to me
Stephen> (though it seems to be clear to him) that these bears
Stephen> entered that campground and attacked those campers
Stephen> because of habituation to human food.
I just heard on the news this morning that the sow was 45 kg
underweight, with no body fat, and in addition was habituated to human
food. To be specific, she had dined regularly at the garbage dump in
a town in B.C. (Kimberly?) before the dump was made bear proof. When
she started causing problems, she was relocated to the Blaeberry area
in Yoho National Park, not far from Lake Louise. She was seen earlier
in that area with two cubs, but only one was with her at Lake Louise
when she attacked the tents. It appears then that one had died,
further suggesting that she was not being successful foraging in the
wilderness. Mr. Herrero suggested on the radio this morning that her
lack of success may have been due to habituation to human food, and
being plopped down in an area that already had grizzlys in it.
In any case, it seems the eye witness mentioned by 'DakotaKid' was
correct in her assessment, and that Mr. Herrero's suspicions were
correct.
--
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Brian Schack |sch...@arc.ab.ca | "I don't want to achieve
Alberta Research Council |http://www.arc.ab.ca | immortality through my
6815 8th St NE | | work ... I want to achieve
Calgary, Alberta |ph: (403) 297-7566 | it through not dying."
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