Bear cub euthanized in Jasper National Park after serious injury

A bear cub was euthanized this month after it was seriously injured in Jasper National Park.

The park said in a news release that there has been a recognizable black bear family in the Jasper townsite this summer, with the mother bear and two of the cubs being a light cinnamon colour and the third cub being black.

Sometime on Sept. 7 or 8, one of the cinnamon-coloured cubs lost one of its hind legs in a severe injury, park officials said.

“The injury was consistent with what we’d expect to find in a railway incident, but we can’t point at that definitively without having witnessed it,” said David Argument, resource conservation manager for Jasper National Park.

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On Sept. 9, the family was spotted with the injured cub in the Jasper townsite, but by the next day the mother had abandoned the cub, the park said.

The cub was found alone outside the town on Sept. 11 and Parks Canada wildlife specialists determined the probability of the injured cub surviving was extremely low.

Parks Canada said the specialists captured, sedated and humanely euthanized the cub.

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The park said there are more than 700 fruit trees in the town of Jasper and bears know they are a good food source for stocking up on calories before winter.

“Each day spent in town further habituates these bears and reduces their wariness of humans, vehicles and trains,” the park said. “Once bears feed on fruit, they will repeatedly come back for more until the tree is removed.

“Even after tree removal, bears tend to return to the same spot until they learn that location is fruitless.”

Parks Canada encourages Jasper residents to pick fruit off their trees, bear-proof them or remove them from their properties altogether.