Our good friend, Wildlife Biologist Cristina Eisenberg always has some interesting writings to share......Today she recounts her Summer 2010 experience encountering an all too "human-concerned" Grizzly in Warton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada.....Cristina articulates how our fossil burning endeavors have changed the weather patterns, the flowering and release of foodstuffs and ultimately the behavior of our Grizzly Population

Cristina Eisenberg

cristina.eisenberg@oregonstate.edu

The Stoney Flats Grizzly

January 15, 2010

Picture this: you and four companions are hiking along a Rocky Mountain trail, dense aspen forest on either side. You had heard that an aggressive grizzly bear prowled the area, and when you first stepped on the trail felt unsettled. As you walk, you keep looking for the bear, but don't see it. But halfway down the trail, hunkered in the shrubs at the forest edge, the bear waits.

As a conservation biologist, I study the ecological effects of wolves on food webs, focusing on their primary prey (elk) and the foods their prey eat (aspens). My work takes place in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, which is home territory for many black and grizzly bears. Coexisting with them while doing wolf research has provided essential lessons about the web of life.

Bears are considered a "generalist" species, which means that a wide range of habitat and food meets their needs. While they tend to be patient with humans, food issues can put humans in conflict with bears. Which is exactly what happened two months after a series of seven late-spring snowstorms in Waterton in 2010. Snowstorms that were a force of nature, right?  Well, yes, and no. While the unseasonable snow was undoubtedly a force of nature, this disturbance had an anthropogenic aspect. Human use of natural resources—timber harvest and fossil fuel combustion—have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, causing global heat to rise and sparking weather disruptions. The Waterton storms had delayed ripening of all the berries by over one month. While the grizzlies had managed well by eating roots, shoots, and insects, they had become distinctly out of sorts upon discovering that their favorite berries were unavailable when they wanted them.

I went to Waterton in late August to measure the aspens in a fire area in the Stoney Flats— a large prairie patch that is prime elk winter habitat. Two weeks before my arrival a grizzly had bluff-charged a friend photographing mountain goats in one of my study sites, stopping heart-stoppingly short of physical contact. That summer five previous bluff-charge incidents had occurred in the park. Video footage (shaky hand-held footage shot by a visitor) of a Stoney Flats encounter showed an amber-colored young male bear pinning three park visitors behind some shrubs, and then toying with them like a housecat with a mouse, swatting the air inches in front of their faces every time they moved. The bear situation was even worse in Yellowstone National Park, where earlier that summer a boar had killed a researcher, and a sow had killed and eaten a camper. I hoped that now that the berries were finally ripe in Waterton, the bears would be so busy eating that they would ignore us.

Stoney Flats lay three miles up the Wishbone Trail. Bears favored this flat, shoestring route hedged by aspens and berry-laden shrubs, as evidenced by abundant bear tracks and dinner-plate-sized purple scats.  I had five people on my aspen survey crew. I had configured us in a "sandwich" formation: those with the most bear experience in the front and rear, everyone else in the middle, where they would be best protected. Our work went well until the end of the fifth day. We were leaving the area, moving briskly, talking loudly, when about one mile from the end of the trail we heard a heavy thud on the path behind us—it was the bear leaping out of the aspen and landing on the trail.

The Stoney Flats grizzly began to follow us, about twenty feet away. I kept our group moving. We looked over our shoulders as he approached, head low, hackles up, jaws clacking, hyperventilating and salivating, dark eyes like coals smoldering into ours. In an even voice I asked everyone to take out their bear spray. He was beautiful—well-muscled and plump from gorging on serviceberries. And the moment my eyes met his, I understood what he wanted to do to us.  He closed the gap between us to ten feet. Not breaking our pace, we began to scold him like an unruly child, looking back at him as we kept moving forward. After three minutes of human rebuke, the bear sat down sideways on the trail. He cocked his head and looked at us, a forlorn, utterly confused expression on his face. Clearly he wasn't used to humans reacting to him this way, so he stayed put. We continued on our way, and I radioed park dispatch, who came to meet us at the trailhead. We returned to finish our work three days later, but never saw the bear again.

Here's what I learned about the web of life. Climate change driven by human over-consumption of resources helped trigger the late-season snowstorms. The resulting disruption to the grizzly bears' food supply caused them to take out their frustration on humans. This chain of events provides a harrowing lesson as we move into a future that includes a burgeoning human population, escalating use of fossil fuels, accelerating global change—and few solutions to these issues. The Stoney Flats grizzly was a messenger. If we open ourselves to the lessons he and his kin have to offer, perhaps we will understand the importance of mending the damage we've done to the earth.