A few weeks ago – on my first day of mountain biking in the Rockies – I nearly rode into a big black bear on the main trail at Canmore Nordic Centre.
In 2009 are there more bears in the Rockies? Closer to people?
Or am I simply hearing about more bears? And more cougar encounters?
trailex.org tracks encounters and information about trail safety in the Bow Valley (from Banff to Bragg Creek).
That site was set up by the husband of Isabelle Dube who was killed by a grizzly near Canmore.
… Dube, 36, was jogging with two friends when they ran into a grizzly. She scrambled up a tree, but the bear chased after her and mauled the young mother, leading to her death.
She was the first person to be killed by a bear in Alberta since 1998. Since then, two more Albertans have been killed.
Robin Kochorek, a 31-year-old Calgarian, was killed by a male grizzly last July as she was mountain biking on a trail in the Panorama area near Invermere, B.C.
Don Allan Peters, 51, a father of two daughters, was mauled to death by a grizzly last November while he was hunting about 150 kilometres northwest of Calgary. …
photo source – National Parks Traveler – It’s a Bear! Everybody Get Behind the Ranger!!
Having grown up in bear country, I still sleep well in a tent in the Rockies. I really don’t worry about them.
Cougars are a greater danger. But those encounters much rarer.
My prediction: there will soon be a public backlash against bears near people areas in the Canadian Rockies.
UPDATE: 60-year-old trail runner, Thomas Nerison, of Kalispell, Montana, narrowly avoided serious damage when he was bitten by a Grizzly in Glacier National Park last Sunday.
besthike.com 
Is it possible that we have gone so far overboard on overprotecting the bears that there are now simply too many, Rick? We know that bears have huge ranges, when too many of them co-exist in too small an area and food is scarce is perhaps when the problems begin. In the 70’s we used to have bears rummaging through campgrounds like Wapiti and never heard of any problems, a couple of years ago when we were in Yellowstone they warned us about bears in the campground too but nobody was overly concerned. Why is it different nowadays in Banff and Canmore? I bet it’s something WE’RE doing different now…