Conservation officers are no longer actively looking for the possibly predatory grizzly bear that stalked a hiker down a trail near Keno City, Yukon last Saturday.
The encounter on Mount Hinton lasted about an hour, and the hiker had to use their bear spray to protect themselves. The bear followed the hiker, and their two leashed dogs, all the way back to their vehicle.
Dean McLean, a conservation officer with the territory’s department of environment, said behaviour like that is typical of a non-defensive, potentially predatory bear. Predatory bears tend to focus on the person or animal they’re stalking, McLean said, methodically following them for long periods of time.
In this case, McLean said the hiker did everything right to get back to safety – they were prepared with bear spray, their dogs were leashed, they stayed calm and they recognized that the bear wasn’t acting defensively.
“Just really recognizing the situation, the seriousness of it with this bear following them,” McLean said. “Always keep thinking and never give up.”
The Yukon government estimates there’s about 6,000 to 7,000 grizzlies in the territory. McLean said this is the first report of an aggressive bear in the Keno area.
As for human-bear encounters this summer, McLean said the numbers aren’t out of the ordinary compared to other years.
“If we’re including everyday reports from towns, like in the City of Whitehorse, certainly daily we have reports of interactions, bears in yards, all those types of things.”
Though officials aren’t looking for this particular bear anymore, they are still monitoring the Mount Hinton area.
McLean said it’s possible that “the bear has just wandered off and is doing bear things.”
But he notes that if people choose to visit the area after last weekend’s encounter, they should be extremely careful and report anything they see to conservation officers.