After the death of a rare white grizzly bear and its cubs in BC, experts look for lessons

In spring 2023, a Parks Canada team installed an electric fence along a section of the Trans-Canada Highway from Lake Louise to the British Columbia-Alberta border.

It was part of an effort to protect animals, including a popular white grizzly bear named Nakoda, from the dangers of the road.

But tragedy struck last month when Nakoda’s two boys were hit and killed by a car, and she herself died in a second collision about 12 hours later.

The deaths in Yoho National Park in the Canadian province of British Columbia, near the province’s border, highlight the ongoing efforts and challenges to protect large animals from danger on highways.

Parks Canada and a private group are pushing for more and better maintained electric fences along highways and private lands, especially given increasing interactions between bears and people.

Saundi Stevens, spokeswoman for Parks Canada, said installing an electric fence is only part of the fight.

“If you look at the Trans-Canada fence from the eastern park boundary to Yoho, it’s 100 kilometres of fencing. Try to imagine what it takes to keep an electrical line functioning,” she said.

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A fallen tree can destroy a fence, she said, and there are “leaks” in culverts and overpasses and underpasses for wildlife.

In Nakoda’s case, it was believed she found one such section of fence without electricity and climbed through it. “(She) somehow climbed over the fence in this two-foot-wide section where there was no live wire,” Stevens said, adding that Nakoda is “a very smart bear” who likes to eat roadside plants.

“We do our best, but there are times when a tree falls and by the time we can go out and inspect the fence … the fence or the electrical line may be down for a while,” Stevens said.

Stevens said Parks Canada is currently in discussions with highway engineers about improving electric fencing on highways following the fatal June 6 collisions.

Parks Canada wildlife management staff were on site repairing the fence when the bears were killed.

“The electric fence works, but I think we need to stay on top of things and do fence repairs, keep the highway fence in good shape every spring and do the maintenance … before the bears come,” Stevens said, adding that Parks Canada is taking the problem seriously.

One of the challenges is that emergency responders cannot respond until the snow has melted, by which time the bears are already coming out of their dens, Stevens said.

According to Parks Canada, about $50,000 is allocated annually for fence repairs in the Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay Field Unit, an area that includes Yoho National Park and the border region.

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Avoid encounters with bears

Park officials are not the only ones concerned about the sometimes fatal encounters between bears and humans.

Gillian Sanders, a beekeeper in the North Kootenay Lake area for over 30 years, said bears visit her property every year. She began installing electric fences in 1997 to help the black and grizzly bears coexist better.

Sanders is the founder of Grizzly Bear Coexistence Solutions, a project that works to improve relations between grizzly bears and rural residents in the Columbia region. The project advocates for electric fences on private lands and has been involved in the installation of more than 525 electric fences in the Kootenay region to reduce conflict with bears.

It provides for a 50 percent contribution towards the cost of electric fences to protect livestock or crops from bears.

Sanders said she has found bears to be “very respectful” and friendly neighbors as long as they are not offered food.

She said electric fences are more important than ever since grizzly bears are now appearing in lower areas where they have never been seen before.

“We want to allow bears to move through the valley floors and use these lower habitats without coming into conflict with people,” Sanders said.

She said the electric fences were not only beneficial for the bears – residents were also happy to see bears near their properties without the risk of getting into conflicts that usually resulted in the animals’ deaths.

“It’s a real shame when bears die for preventable reasons,” Sanders said. “It’s pretty easy to coexist with bears if you have the means to keep them out of the areas where we don’t want them.”

Although it has been a month since the deaths of Nakoda and her cubs, Stevens said the loss is still “incredibly difficult” for park staff, especially those who spent “hundreds and hundreds of hours” monitoring Nakoda, whom she described as a “very special” bear.

She said Nakoda developed a “certain level of tolerance towards people” and learned to climb over the fence, which she did frequently. “Our staff worked really hard to teach her not to do that. So they were constantly bullying her and pushing her back over the fence. But she never really learned,” she said.

“When something like this happens, it impacts everyone,” Stevens said. “It’s super unfortunate.”

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