National parks in Australia are not the only ones grappling with ways to reduce the growing number of conflicts that visitors have with wildlife.
Canada’s Banff National Park recently held a ‘Keep the Wild in Wildlife’ forum to discuss its management plan with the public.
The ‘initiative looked at ways to teach visitors and residents about reducing conflict with wildlife in the park. As the number of visitors to Banff National Park increases, officials have recorded more than 1,000 human/wildlife incidents already this year.
“In the first 10 months of 2012, we have already surpassed the full year totals for 2011,” Ann Morrow, from Parks Canada, told the Calgary Herald. “The question is do these increased numbers indicate a trend in behaviour or a trend in reporting … we can’t say for sure, but these incidents are cause for concern.”
More than 3.2 million visitors went through the park gates in 2011, and this year’s statistics already suggest it could meet or exceed those numbers.
The most notable incident reportedly occurred on July 25 when Parks Canada received a report of people in a van throwing food to Banff’s most famous grizzly bear, No. 64, and her three yearling cubs in an attempt to lure the animals closer for a photo.
“It was only one of many incidents in Banff National Park in the last year,” said Morrow. “These incidents include people attempting to pet a deer at the post office, people feeding a deer fries outside McDonald’s, and people trying to put their kid on the back of a deer in Central Park.”
Although most of those incidents were simply misguided, the Calgary Herald there were also malicious encounters — including an incident in July when there was a report of people playing baseball with a dead pigeon and another in 2011 when a visitor repeatedly punched a big horn sheep in the head.
Ms Morrow said they would like to decrease the number of human-wildlife conflicts while giving visitors an opportunity to interact with wildlife. However, she said visitor expectations had to be realistic
“We want satisfied visitors who have enjoyable, memorable and meaningful experiences of and in nature,” she said. “Deer feeding or deer riding, sheep petting or sheep punching, deer chasing or attracting are not the kind of visitor activities that we want people to come to Banff expecting to engage in,” she said. “Getting up close and personal is not a safe and desirable way to connect with wildlife.”
