Any sightings of this wolf or other habituated wildlife should be reported to Kananaskis Emergency Services at 403-591-7755. <\/p>\n
KANANASKIS \u2013 Provincial wildlife officials are keeping close tabs on a wolf that has likely been fed or accessed human food.<\/p>\n
Officials say there have been reports of increased encounters with a lone grey wolf in recent months.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wolf appears to be habituated and does not avoid people as wild wolves typically do,\u201d said Neil Singh, press secretary to Alberta Parks Minister Todd Loewen in an email.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been observed numerous times in campgrounds and along roadways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Singh said conservation officers and Alberta Parks staff are monitoring the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201c[They]\u00a0have been using aversive conditioning methods when possible, to discourage the wolf from approaching people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to monitor the situation closely and follow the appropriate human-wildlife coexistence protocols in our response.\u201d<\/p>\n
A request for an interview was not granted. Additional questions for more details, including whether there is talk\u00a0of capturing and destroying the wolf, had not been answered, but the Outlook will update the story if possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nick de Ruyter, program director for Bow Valley WildSmart, said it sounds like the wolf is likely food-conditioned, which can lead to bolder and more aggressive behaviour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf wildlife get too close to people for a long period of time, typically they\u2019re the ones that end up paying the price,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the long-term survival and safety of the wildlife, we really just need to do our best to not let them access any kind of food or feed them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Food-conditioned or habituated wildlife often end up getting relocated or killed for public safety reasons, said de Ruyter.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce they learn that behaviour and they learn to associate food or people as a food source, it\u2019s very, very difficult, near impossible to unlearn that behaviour,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The province asked that any sightings of this wolf or other habituated wildlife be reported to Kananaskis Emergency Services at 403-591-7755.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Any sightings of this wolf or other habituated wildlife should be reported to Kananaskis Emergency Services at 403-591-7755.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-17330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}