If you were starving, you wouldn’t pass up an easy meal, would you? A hungry black bear in Banff National Park sure didn’t.
Parks Canada closed the Rampart Creek campground along the Icefields Parkway in the national park after a bear tore into an outdoor dining shelter.
The Rampart Creek campground is located about 90 kilometres north of Lake Louise and offers visitors an authentic mountain camping experience…bears included. According to the Parks Canada website, the campground is closed to all tents and tent trailers, but hard-sided trailers are still allowed to use the space.
It’s unclear if the bear found any food in the shelter, but scent attractants were found.
Scent attractants are anything that emits a smell wildlife is attracted to, such as tablecloths, cutlery, empty cans and containers, cookware, and condiments that might contain traces of food.
A black bear had already been seen in the campground looking for food, but it’s unknown if it was the same bear that tore into the shelter.
“Wildlife management actions, which may include tactics such as hazing/aversive conditioning or trapping and collaring, will be assessed as necessary,” Annie MacNeil, a spokesperson for Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay, wrote to the Rocky Mountain Outlook in an email.
MacNeil claims Parks Canada is monitoring the situation and reminds everyone that feeling wildlife in a national park is illegal.
Disposing wildlife attractants like food isn’t enough to keep animals like bears away.
Believe it or not, bears are thought to have the best sense of smell of any animal on earth.
A bear’s sense of smell is about seven times better than a bloodhound’s or roughly 2,100 times better than a human’s sense of smell.
So, just because you can’t smell anything doesn’t mean a bear can’t.
A can of your favourite spaghetti is just as dangerous empty as it is full unless properly cleaned or disposed of.
The same goes for anything associated with food preparation, such as garbage, wrappers, dishes, pots, portable stoves, and bottles—you get the gist.
Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind
Whether you are out for a hike or have left the campground for a day-trip, you must never leave food or food-related items unattended.
“Dispose of all garbage in wildlife-proof garbage bins or take it with you. Your garbage kills wildlife,” said MacNeil.
There are many wildlife-proof garbage bins at the Rampart Creek campground and campgrounds across the province in national parks, so why not use them?
You aren’t just protecting yourself; you’re protecting wildlife too.
Wildlife attractants left behind by campers disrupt bears’ natural foraging behaviours.
Animals that become dependent on human food sources or food waste lose their natural hunting and foraging skills through habituation.
When habituated animals lose access to these human food sources, they often die because they can no longer provide for themselves.
Habituated animals tend to frequent human areas in search of food. They are more likely to conflict with people, leading to dangerous situations.
Human-wildlife conflicts often end in the animal being relocated or ‘euthanized.’
For example, four black bears were killed after becoming food-conditioned in southwest Calgary in 2022.
More recently, an adult black bear was killed in Banff National Park after it was seen frequenting busy areas of Banff and stopped responding to hazing efforts like rubber bullets.
You might think you’re helping wildlife by feeding animals but causing more harm than good. A fed bear is a dead bear, as with most wild animals.
The closure of the Rampart Creek campground shows that even a seemingly harmless scent can attract a bear, leading to potentially dangerous outcomes.
Properly disposing of food waste and food-related items can go a long way toward protecting both ourselves and our diverse wildlife.
