Damned cannibals (Big Grizzly)

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Freyr_255

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Kind of a limp wrister piece but I'm sure a few people will be salivating over this article. :D

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/archives/sunnews/canada/2013/08/20130821-205835.html

He's a 600-pound serial killer, standing nearly 7-feet tall and wielding an arsenal of weapons capable of ripping victims apart in seconds.
Luckily, his taste is for black bear meat -- even if that technically makes this backwoods brute something of a cannibal, being a member of Ursus genus himself.

Meet grizzly No. 122: one of the largest carnivores known to roam the forests of Banff National Park, and now a proven repeat killer of black bears.

"I'd say that's exactly what happened -- there's evidence on the site that the black bear was foraging on the edge of the trail, prior to being consumed by this grizzly bear," said Steve Michel, a human/wildlife conflict specialist with Banff National Park.

"It looks like a situation where the black bear was in the wrong place at the wrong time as a much, much larger grizzly bear came by."

The black bear was taken by surprise on the Sundance trail near the Cave and Basin National Historic Site, and Michel said it wouldn't have been much of a fight.

About five-times larger than his victim, No. 122 would have made short work of the smaller bruin, likely using his powerful jaws to end the struggle.

"He's a very large male grizzly bear, and definitely the dominant grizzly bear on the landscape -- the black bear was not very large in comparison; we're speculating, but based on paw size and skull size it was about 100 to 150 pounds," said Michel.

"We're talking quite a size differential. It would not have been a substantial struggle."

The feast took two days, and resulted in the entire black bear being consumed by the hungry grizzly.

In the meantime, the bloody teddy bear's picnic forced officials to close popular hiking trails around the Sundance Canyon area, waiting for the radio-collared grizzly to move out of the area -- the trails reopened Wednesday, with No. 122 now moved on.

Michel says a grizzly eating a kill is perfectly natural behaviour, but also a very dangerous situation for anyone disturbing the highly territorial bears.

In 14 years of park patrol, Michel says he's only dealt with four cases of bear-on-bear predation -- and two of those involve No. 122.

"I suspect it's going on in the background on a regular basis, at least a couple of times a year, but without radio collars to show us stumbling across a kill like this would be like finding a needle in a haystack," said Michel.
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Ohhhhhh!! You mean that big mean Griz killed and ate his cousin, a black bear?? ;) ;)
This is news??? To whom??
Any outdoorsman who has spent time around these
critters knows the effect the presence of a Grizzly has on a black bear.

This is for good reason....a Grizzly will kill and eat a black whenever he gets a chance.
Eagleye.
 
My wife and I, and her sister and brother-in-law, watched a huge mature grizzly trying to take a black bear one afternoon about ninety miles North of here. It was on a big sidehill, and gave us quite a show.

We watched them running for perhaps sixty to seventy seconds. At one point the grizzly was less than two body lengths behind the black, and they disappeared into a thicket of poplar. I honestly figured the black had the biscuit in there, but about ten seconds later he burst out about five lengths ahead. The grizzly carried on for about two hundred yards, stopped, then sat down, and watched the black run out of sight. Finally laid down, and stretched out with his sides heaving.

I have seen that grizzly several times, and he is always in good condition. We were all quite amazed that the black bear made his escape. He must have somehow, with his much smaller frame, outmanoeuvred the grizzly in that thicket. They both were running much faster than any of us on here would be capable of, and did so for well over a minute.

Ted
 
We were sitting watching an unharvested oat field one evening that had 13 black bears in it when suddenly a BRUTE of a black appeared on the edge of the field at the bush line. He was standing still looking back and forth when a sow with two cubs feeding in the field took off at full run for the bush 100 yards to the big guy's right. He was out and moving in a flash and cub no2 never made it to the bush with momma and sibling. That big fella killed and made quick work of that cub! Good old mother nature at her best!!
 
Why not? said:
My wife and I, and her sister and brother-in-law, watched a huge mature grizzly trying to take a black bear one afternoon about ninety miles North of here. It was on a big sidehill, and gave us quite a show.

We watched them running for perhaps sixty to seventy seconds. At one point the grizzly was less than two body lengths behind the black, and they disappeared into a thicket of poplar. I honestly figured the black had the biscuit in there, but about ten seconds later he burst out about five lengths ahead. The grizzly carried on for about two hundred yards, stopped, then sat down, and watched the black run out of sight. Finally laid down, and stretched out with his sides heaving.

I have seen that grizzly several times, and he is always in good condition. We were all quite amazed that the black bear made his escape. He must have somehow, with his much smaller frame, outmanoeuvred the grizzly in that thicket. They both were running much faster than any of us on here would be capable of, and did so for well over a minute.

Ted
Click to expand...

I saw a Grizzly chase a beef steer once; it is UNBELIEVABLE how fast they can run. Suffice to say it's faster than a steer can run!
 
Know an old timer who worked on the Ya Ha Tinda ranch in the 60's. Nothing but Black bears there then . Now they're all Grizzlies. ;)

Grizz
 
Our federal government and tax money at work, LOL.

Banff is just a taxpayer funded project to provide summer jobs for the children of eastern federal bureaucrats. If you ever talk to the any of the thousands of summer / seasonal workers it doesn't take long to discover that for some strange reason every one of them is from Toronto or Ottawa, LOL.
 
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I was in P.A. National Park this weekend and the kid who sold me camping permits didn't get his accent in this province. I've been there and in other National Parks before so it wasn't a surprise.
 
I work for parks Canada in Banff. Happens more than you would think. Couple other grizzlies have taken out black bears for food this year. Pretty cool that nature stuff.
 
I really do not understand what all the fuss is about. This is a perfectly natural, and not infrequent, occurrence. Bears prey on other bears, especially on cubs. I have no doubt that is the reason that sows are so protective of their young. Having said that, they will abandon a cub rather than die if things get really dicey.

They are magnificent animals, with amazing stamina. That grizzly and black bear we watched were all over that big sidehill, for more than a minute! Uphill, downhill, across sideways, sharp turns, in and out of brush..... it went on and on. I was almost out of breath watching it, and have often wondered if a quarter horse would have been able to keep up with them.

Ted
 
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Bear on bear cannibalism is pretty common even within species. But we saw something that may or may not be quite as common, a sow eating her own cub. The pair had been observed for several days, and the cub's condition was poor. When it succumbed, the female ate it.






 
we saw a grizzly sow with two older cubs chasing a nice black bear boar and i can tell you the black bear didnt wait and was running fast .... we have some nice pictures of that. ill post them when we re back ...
 
This isn't news to anyone who's ever been around bears. Cannibalism happens in all bear species. But i suspect the vast majority of people don't deal with bears very often and this would be shocking to them.
 
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