BY COLETTE DERWORIZ, CALGARY HERALD
Humans must find ways to coexist with wildlife such as grizzly bears, wolves and cougars to ensure their survival, the former superintendent of Banff National Park says.
During a presentation titled Neighbours with Sharp Teeth this week, biologist and author Kevin Van Tighem talked to Canmore residents about living with wildlife.
“We can’t just treat animals as entertainment,” he said. “We go out there, we see … a pack of wolves, or a dog startles a bear and it runs away — and that’s our story to go home with, but we’re going home having experienced that at the expense of an animal that is living on the edge.
“They are living on the edge of survival, especially in the winter. We aren’t. They are there where they have to be. We are there where we chose to be, so it really falls to us … to figure out how to coexist with them.”
His message came the same week a wolf was fed homemade food along the Bow Valley Parkway in Banff National Park, and a month after two cougars were shot in Canmore after the big cats killed two pet dogs.
It’s believed the cougars became used to being around dogs running free in the area.
Kim Titchener, program director with Bow Valley Wildsmart, said getting the message out to both visitors and residents was always a challenge.
“We’re a community that’s pretty ahead as far as wildlife management, but we’re also at the centre of wildlife conflict,” she said.
Titchener was hopeful that people — including full- and part-time residents as well as visitors — would learn to live with the cougars and other wildlife that live around the town.
Van Tighem, who lives in Canmore, noted cougars are natural predators.
“They make a living by killing things. They eat meat, and they eat meat by stalking it,” he said. “They are always out there, but they are almost never seen. They attack from behind.
“These animals are the ultimate test for us, because we are going to be living close to cougars for the rest of this century.”
He noted towns like Canmore, Banff, Jasper and Bragg Creek — all of which have had issues with the big cats — have been built in cougar habitat. In addition, elk and deer often seek refuge in the towns.
“As long as we’ve got an awful lot of prey living in and among our homes and residences, we are going to have cougars there,” he said. “Wolves will avoid us, bears would normally prefer to avoid us and aren’t really predators most of the time anyways, cougars can avoid us by being among us because they hunt at night and they hunt from cover.”
Van Tighem said most cougars won’t look to humans for food, but young and untrained or old and frail animals will sometimes prey on pet dogs, stray cats or feral rabbits.
People can inadvertently train cougars to become comfortable around dogs by letting their pets run free.
“It’s giving cougar a message that there is more out here than just deer,” he said. “Just like bears start to associate humans with food by coming after our BBQs, cougars start to associate humans with food by coming after our pets.”
He said it’s important for people to work out a coexistence.
“We have optionality, they don’t — and it’s so cool that they are out there,” he said, noting Albertans are among the few who can say we live among large, wild predators. “That’s our story, that’s our point of pride but it’s not one that we can take pride in if we just do it by default.
“It has to be a conscious way of doing things or we won’t have predators here for much longer.”