Watching for Bear Signs - Flipped Rocks

by Derek Ryder, Volunteer Wildlife Ambassador & IGA Interpretive Guide

Kananaskis Country is home to a lot of animals, including bears. Recreating safely in bear country means more than just knowing what to do in a bear encounter. It’s also understanding signs that bears are around, so that maybe those encounters can be prevented.

Bears are big enough that they almost always leave evidence that they’ve been present – if you know what to look for. Keeping your eyes peeled for this evidence can help you be aware if bears are present, and will decrease the risk that you’ll accidentally run into a bear. In this series of articles, I’m going to help you learn about some of the signs bears leave in the forest.

A prime food for bears any time they’re awake is ants. A few months ago, I noted that broken logs were a good sign bears were going after Carpenter ants. Being opportunistic feeders, bears often just sniff for things on their travels. Finding an ant colony as they walk from point A to point B is kind of a food “freebee”. And one place ants live is under rocks.

It is not the slightest bit uncommon to be walking on a trail, through a meadow, or in an open forest, and find rocks that have been flipped over. Usually, the flipped rocks are big; the bigger the rock, the more that can hide under it. In the last few weeks alone, I’ve seen rocks flipped over that were so heavy, it was hard for me to move them.

Flipped rocks often come in “clusters”. I was doing some work at Rock Glacier in late July, and one morning, found a line of flipped rocks stretching the entire width of the glacier (with a pile of bear scat at the end of it). The bears travelling across the rocky grasses flipped over at least 30 big rocks as they went. The ground was dry and hard; they left no footprints. However, the flipped rock string was obvious. The spring is another time I’ve seen many, many rocks flipped in a small area. Spring food for bears isn’t the best, so a 5,000-member ant colony is a pretty nice find.

If you see flipped rocks, look carefully. Is the ground where the rock used to be still damp? Are the grasses under the rock still green? If you flip the rock back over, are there still ants around, and do the grasses spring back upright? These are all signs that the rock was flipped VERY recently. The grasses underneath will start to yellow and die within 48 hours, and the soil where the rock used to be will dry in 4-6 hours in the sunshine.

Flipped rocks are far more common than you think, especially in times like these with a very poor berry crop. But you need to watch for them. None of the folks that stopped by Rock Glacier when I was there even noticed the flipped rocks at all. When I pointed them out, few knew what it meant. Don’t be like them.

Click here to find out about some of the other signs that bears leave behind!