What are the Bears eating today?

by Derek Ryder, Wildlife Ambassador & IGA Interpretive Guide

Living and recreating safely in bear country means understanding many things, from signs that bears are around to what to do in a bear encounter. As we wander in the wilderness (or even in town sites) we are travelling in bears’ homes: their living areas, dining areas, and even their bathrooms. Recognizing food that bears are currently eating can help raise your awareness of the possibility that bears are around where you are at any given moment. In this series of articles, each month, we’re going to look at what bears are eating right now, and for the next few weeks.

It’s the time of year when the diets of Grizzly and Black bears have diverged. Grizzlies started moving out of the valleys and into the alpine weeks ago. Black bears find slightly higher elevations but den much lower than their grizzly counterparts. By this time next month, half of the grizzlies and virtually all of the black bears will be in dens (and the ski season will have started, even though this week doesn’t feel like it).

Black bears’ thoughts in October turn to grasses and insects. In October 2020, I was doing a Wildlife Ambassador rove in Riverside Park in downtown Canmore and found a great big pile of bear scat. It was nothing but the lush green grass growing in the park. Bears are smart and always are eating the best thing available. One of our wildlife coexistence challenges in the Canmore area is we plant and lovingly tend good ‘ole grass in our parks, which is demonstrably a wildlife attractant. Riverside had bear poop, deer poop and elk poop in it – and a herd of elk napping in the trees nearby on a busy Sunday. And we all know how many bears have been removed from town because of fruit trees and other attractants.

Non-“domesticated” black bears that don’t live near cultivated areas would love that grass, but no one waters or fertilizes the wilderness. Yes, there are still berries around on late-blooming plants like Dogwood. When in doubt, black bears will always target kinnikinnik berries as a default; they are plentiful and stay on the plant all winter long so can be an ideal “bedtime snack”. But black bears are also using their sharp little claws to tear open logs and find ants and wasps. Insects like these are super high in protein and calories, and can be sniffed out.

Grizzlies, on the other hand, take advantage of their high alpine denning areas to target the perfect bedtime snack: ground squirrels and marmots. All of these species went into their dens to hibernate in late August and the last ones are zonked out by mid-September. By mid October, virtually nothing will wake them. Columbian Ground squirrels in particular are very easy prey. They have a very specific nesting pattern: two access holes about 20’ apart connected by an underground tunnel. In the middle is a communal nesting chamber with 5-10 squirrels in it. All the bear has to do is stick their nose in a bunch of holes, find two that smell exactly the same, and then dig between them.

I’ve seen this happen in real time in the wilderness; I watched a grizzly bear dig a 10’ long trench 2’ deep in under 3 minutes. It was like watching a roto-rooter at work. And the prize: one whole lot of calories that won’t run or fight back. The photo is what’s left after this happens. Best part for the grizz? A couple of inches of snow makes it easier to find the holes; they have enough heat coming out of them to create dimples of partial melt. You can find these dig remnants in the spring the moment the snow melts. Every bear den I have visited to help with research featured nearby remnant digs for ground squirrels. Digs like this are a common sight in places like Chester Lakes, Burstall Pass, Rummel Lake, Commonwealth Lakes, Ptarmigan Cirque and Pocaterra Cirque.

But grizzlies are very opportunistic when it comes to eating. While digs for ground squirrels pre-denning is common, bears also understand elk rutting season. It is hard work being a male elk trying to be dominant, and if you place 2nd or 3rd that year in the hierarchy, you expended a LOT of energy and end up in a weakened state but didn’t get anywhere. You’re still recovering from that osteoporosis that stole calcium from your bones to make a big set of antlers, and you might be injured from the fighting with other males. Guess what? In your weakened state, you’re a target for a grizzly bear.

And when in doubt: grizzlies will always fall back on roots of hedysarum, Cow Parsnip, anything green still growing near open creeks and even kinnikinnik roots and berries like their black bear cousins.

What still impresses me is how late in the season research cameras capture the biggest male grizzly bears “out and about”. I always wonder exactly what food this particular bear was eating in the second week of January in 2013. Because even though this will be the last in our series of “What are bears eating today?” some will still be up and about for several months to come. Keep that bear spray handy despite the snow!

Click here to find out ‘What the bears are eating’ in other months!