AnimalsMagazine

Sometimes when we tell stories, we only focus on the dramatic parts – the unusual, the here and now.

We don’t always spend time looking behind the scenes at the untold story. The nuts and bolts of where a journey started – how a process unfolded – to reach that one moment when an idea is launched and takes hold.

For our two grizzly siblings, where did their journey begin? What untold process led them to where they are now?

Well, their story started way outside the friendly confines of your classroom: Mount Robson Provincial Park.

Somewhere up the mountainside, deep inside an unsuspecting hole, our fearless – okay, well maybe not fearless – bears were born alongside their third sibling.

That’s right: this duo was once a trio.

Like all cubs, once the snow started to melt, they stumbled out of their den and into the world, bravely embracing all of life’s little curiosities.

And by bravely, I mean between the protective legs of mom. Or at least within her watchful eye.

As they grew from tiny fluff balls to slightly bigger fluff balls, they never really stopped being goof balls. Or playing with snowballs.

Much to the chagrin of their mother – an elderly, well-known sow that never had much success in shepherding cubs to adulthood.

Why?

Well for starters, grizzlies are amongst the slowest reproducing land mammals in North America. A sow doesn’t have many litters during her, on average, 25-year lifespan. Female grizzlies don’t usually have their first cubs until seven or eight – or later – and will raise their cubs for two-three years. That means a sow usually has one-four cubs (but usually only two) every four years. And the cubs she does have? They only have a 50% chance of surviving their first year.

You see, cubs have to overcome male bears who, in the right circumstance, will kill cubs to mate with their mother.

But that’s not all.

Cubs also have to survive things like rivers, freak snow storms in July, bigger rivers, falling trees, still more rivers – why are there so many rivers! – food – or lack thereof – and energy spent looking for food – or, again, lack thereof.

Which, for the most part, is no fault of the sow. In this case, her territory has all of these hazards and then some: Like road, roads and more roads.

She tried to teach her cubs the threats roads possess, but she also knew she could use roads to find food and discourage male bears from attacking. After all, male bears hate roads more than just about anything.

Unfortunately, the constant juggle of finding safety and finding food, meant this sow lost one of this litter’s three cubs.

But the other two were lucky. They beat the odds.

When the time came for our grizzly siblings to set out on their own – when biology told mom it was time to run them off – our bears had an advantage. They knew the risks and rewards of people and food – and they also understood the harsh realities of nature.

Oh! And they knew they were grizzly bears.

Even though ground squirrels have a way, way better chance of surviving their first year of life, they just grow up to become ground squirrels – basically, nature’s cannon fodder.

But our grizzly siblings? In surviving to adulthood, they knew they could leave their mark on the landscape because of their placement at the top of the food chain.

It just wasn’t going to be this exact landscape.

Grizzlies require massive areas to roam and, usually, they require solitude in the process. It’s what makes finding – and conserving – enough suitable territory for grizzlies so difficult.

But it’s also what makes grizzlies more adaptable than we think: They’re willing to move.

And our bears? They elected to see if there truly was a better tomorrow to be had up valley.

This journey – their process? It led to the unlikely story you now know.

But what about the political process? How exactly does it work? How exactly can it help us create a better tomorrow for these bears, for nature and for people?