Bear City
They must have gotten the memo. Now that they're officially listed as threatened in Alberta, the grizzly bears are out in force at the minesite. Maybe they feel much safer now that they're threatened. So far this spring I've seen 9 grizzlies. That's a personal best and I feel very proud of this accomplishment, I will probably be nominated for all sorts of Oscars and Nobels and Pullitzers very shortly. Usually it's from a distance, but the other day I was doing my rounds in my pumptruck and crested a hill to discover two furry cannonballs go shooting past my truck at a truly astonishing speed. When I recovered from my surprise I followed them slowly, doing 20 kph and they easily outdistanced me. I didn't want to go any faster because they were already spooked and I certainly don't want to cause distress to my bear brothers and sisters. "It's okay I'm your friend" I told them but they must not have heard me. Anyways they ran up this ridge and one of them hid in the trees, I could hear him making a sort of crying sound, while the other one kind of did some bluff charges at me, and she made some woofing sort of sounds at me. This brings me to
Extremely valuable lesson about grizzly bears #1: Never ever (not ever!) try to outrun a grizzly bear. I'm serious. Get it tattooed on your hand so next time you are tempted to try, you can look down at your palm and remember that this is a Bad Idea.

Yesterday I was making my rounds and discovered a bear trap that hadn't been there the day before. Not only that, but it was apparently tripped. Unless they didn't bother to trigger it when they set it up? But that makes no sense! Not being able to resist, I went up to the trap to see if there was anyone inside. Helloooo?? There's a camera there so you have to be careful about not getting your photo taken. Anyways I was eventually able to ascertain that there was a bear inside. I tapped on the trap and heard a heavy breathing sound in return- remember the velociraptors in Jurassic park when they breathed on the window? It sounded exactly like that. I peeked in the air hole and saw a gleaming eye staring back at me.
I met the U of A researcher and the park warden who set the traps the other day, they are doing research on the effects of mining on grizzly bears. Anyone who studies bears is someone I want to get to know so I gave the researcher a ride in my truck to scout out locations for his traps. Unfortunately this was not the bonding experience I had hoped for as he locked himself out of his Tundra and was more preoccupied with that than answering my questions.
Anyways when they arrived at the tripped trap they were able to determine that the bear inside was a 250 lb female they had preciously collared, so they were just going to release the trap and let her go.

This brings me to
Extremely valuable lesson about grizzly bears #2: Never ever approach a sprung bear trap. Not ever! Why not? you might ask, and indeed I asked this same question of the park warden when he told me this yesterday. It's not like it's going to be able to get out, sheesh! Yeah but, what if the bear inside the trap was a cub and the very distraught and aggravated mama bear was hiding in the bushes?