Grizzly bears now 'regular residents' of Manitoba after sightings jump in recent years

Grizzly bears are being spotted so often in northern Manitoba, a new study concludes they are now "regular residents" of this province, especially along the coast of Hudson Bay.

In the March issue of the academic publication Arctic, a team of wildlife experts led by Doug Clark at the University of Saskatchewan investigated every suspected or confirmed grizzly sighting over the past four decades in Manitoba and found the big bears are being observed with increasing frequency.

Of 133 confirmed sightings since 1980, 103 took place in the 2010s — a five-fold increase from the previous decade, the researchers found.

"We've seen grizzly bear observations more than double every decade since the 1980s," said Clark, an associate professor in the School of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

"It's not just one bear wandering through any more. It's pretty clearly something else going on."

That something may not just be increased visitation by bears who likely lumber down the Hudson Bay coast from Nunavut, Clark said. One of the sightings involved a mother grizzly with two cubs, something that suggests but does not confirm grizzlies are now breeding in Manitoba, Clark said.

"I think it's very likely to be accurate. However, we're not calling it confirmed because there are implication for what it would mean for the province," he said, explaining the presence of a confirmed breeding population could trigger a management plan for the species.

"We need a pretty high standard of evidence there."

A spokesperson for the province said officials with the natural resources and northern development department are aware of Clark's research, but stressed there is no confirmation grizzlies are breeding here.

Clark said he would be "stunned, if given what we're seeing, there are not grizzlies reproducing in Manitoba," but right now most of the grizzlies have been seen in Wapusk National Park and in the Churchill Wildlife Management area, where cubs have not been spotted.

The Hudson Bay coast of Manitoba is the only place in the world where grizzlies, polar bears and black bears have been confirmed to coexist. 

Clark said the apparent rise in grizzly numbers has implication for black bears, who tend to live inland from the coast, and polar bears, which only frequent the coast during the months when there is no ice on Hudson Bay.

"There's a whole variety of things that go on when grizzly bears and polar bears meet: grizzly bears killing the polar bears, grizzly bears and polar bears also mate, and you've got everything going on in between," he said.

Grizzlies also tend to dominate black bears when the two species overlap, but young grizzlies can run into trouble if they encounter older black bears, he said.