Mourning loss of beloved blond bear, wildlife advocates want more protection for the animals
CBC
The message from wildlife advocates is clear after the death of a beloved blond bear and her two cubs: more needs to be done to protect the animals.
Bear 178 — a rare white grizzly nicknamed Nakoda by locals — died Saturday of injuries she suffered in a car collision two days earlier in Yoho National Park.
Her two cubs were struck and killed along the highway in the same area around 12 hours earlier.
"I've been on that highway and very few people drive the speed limit," said Jason Leo Bantle, a nature photographer who's been following the bear for years.
"I've spent a lot of moments with her, not long moments, it's been quick moments, but intimate times where you're looking through a lens and you're looking into the eye of the bear and she has a story to tell … she's a beautiful, beautiful creature."
After witnessing the collision that injured Nakoda, wildlife managers with Parks Canada saw her climb a fence and run into the woods with a slight limp.
They had hoped she'd be able to walk off her wounds and survive, but that wasn't the case.
On Saturday, the bear's GPS collar sent a mortality signal, meaning the device had been stationary for 24 hours. Staff then confirmed Nakoda's death, saying they suspect she had died of internal injuries sustained in the collision.
"The bear was startled by a train and ran into the road in front of two vehicles. One vehicle was able to swerve and avoid a collision, but a second vehicle was unable to react in time and struck the bear," said Parks Canada spokesperson James Eastham.
"While Parks Canada is working hard to make roads safer for wildlife, we must once again emphasize to visitors of the importance of not stopping to view wildlife, driving cautiously and obeying speed limits."
Nakoda's death is the most recent of 61 bear mortalities, both black and grizzly, over the past four years across Kootenay National Park, Yoho National Park and Lake Louise, according to data from Parks Canada. She's the sixth breeding female in those same parks to have died since 2019.
As of June 11, four grizzly bears and nine black bears have been killed due to car or train collisions this year.
Those numbers are worrying, according to Clayton Lamb, a wildlife scientist with Biodiversity Pathways, a research institute at the University of British Columbia.
"Every death, especially of adult females, can have outsized impacts and cause declines or reduce the viability of those bear populations," Lamb said.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.
The toxic drug crisis has taken more than 47,000 lives in Canada since 2016 and the synthetic opioid fentanyl has become a household name. But now, what's believed to be an even more potent class of synthetic drugs is showing up in drug busts across the country: nitazenes.