Five animals released into Tonquin Valley in historic first step for conservation breeding program For the first time, Parks Canada biologists opened a gate and watched caribou they had raised in captivity walk into the wild. They knew the five animals were ready. The animals had been eating native ...

Protecting Harlequin Ducks means protecting the ecosystems we depend on, too. Back in the spring of 2005, I made my first visit to the Maligne Outflow bridge as a newly minted Jasper biologist. It was a beautiful sunny day. After taking in the sweeping panorama of mountains and lake water, I noticed...

I Smell a Rat! Let’s get one thing out of the way right now – muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) are not rats. Muskrats and rats are both rodents, but muskrats are actually more closely related to the meadow voles you can see scampering about in Jasper’s wet meadows... Muskrats are in the family Cricetid...

Beware the ‘Fawn of the Dead’: a herd of skeletal, pock-marked deer limp menacingly towards their target, moaning, intent on a gory brain feast…grraaahhh !!! OK, not really; there are no zombie deer eating anyone’s brains. So why is the disease known as Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) also known as zo...

The wolverine is a reclusive, mysterious animal that is rarely seen by humans. I t’s scientific name is Gulo gulo, which translates to ‘glutton’ or ‘I swallow. ' But what’s more gluttonous? The feeding habits of a reclusive wild animal, or the self-serving policy decisions of a populist government g...

Upheaval and change One of the most successful TV shows of the past several years has been Succession, a darkly funny drama about an exceptionally dysfunctional family of rich “one percenters” and their competition to succeed the ailing father as CEO of a huge corporation. In ecology, the word succe...

While some animals will die in a fire, most do not. To varying degrees, species have adapted to fires. Biologist and Jasper Local contributor Mark Bradley explains. The Power of the Burn I can’t help but get emotional when I see social media posts about Jasperites who have lost their homes, the hero...

This is the time of year when competition is on everyone’s mind. The NHL and NBA playoffs have just ended, the 2024 Euros are underway and the Paris Olympics are just around the corner. Everywhere you look, people are straining and sweating to reach the podium or lift the cup (sadly, my Toronto Rapt...

Jasper National Park wildlife officials have increased the urgency of their bear management strategy after a family of grizzlies swam into another popular Maligne Lake campground last weekend. On June 16, nine days after sniffing around Coronet Creek campsite on the south end of Maligne Lake, three ...

Organizers, artists and partakers of the 2024 UpLift! Mural Festival are soaring on the thermals of another successful celebration of art in Jasper. The festival, now in its third year, has brought more vibrancy to walls around the community. And because Parks Canada has softened its stance on forma...

Jasper National Park has implemented area closures to give grizzly bears, black bears and calving elk room to roam. Grizzly bears are in the Jasper valley bottoms. Area closures along Trail 7 are in place to give them room. // Simone Heinrich Trail 7 along the south and east borders of the Jasper Pa...

Parks Canada and Alberta Fish and Wildlife are reminding industry partners about the hazards of intervening in life-and-death situations involving wildlife. On March 11, Alberta Fish and Wildlife’s Hinton office received an atypical call from CN dispatchers after a bighorn sheep was injured on the r...

Ahead of the Jasper National Park 2024 Annual Public Forum , Parks Canada is launching a fruit tree replacement program . The announcement comes after the 2023 summer season wherein more than 400 bear-related incidents in the Jasper townsite were responded to by wildlife officials. The main cause, P...

“Mai, tuktumia’tuit!” That means “Wow, look at all those caribou!” (I think… my Inuktitut has not improved after 30 years of inactivity). It was a cold but sunny morning in late winter, somewhere along the treeline about 100 km west of Arviat, Nunavut. Peter, Joe and I were travelling by snowmobile ...

The first time I saw an elk in Jasper, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones was topping the charts. No, this photo is not from 1965…the author just converted it to sepia tone to make it look "old timey." // Mark Bradley It was 1965, and we were in the middle of a family vacation to th...

A number of years ago I happened to be driving through Hay River, NWT . It was noon, so I grabbed a sandwich at a local coffee shop and sat myself down on a park bench to enjoy a leisurely lunch. Within minutes, five or six Common Ravens had gathered around me in a perfect semicircle and fixed me wi...

A mother black bear and her cub have been captured and removed from the Jasper townsite by wildlife officials. It’s a second-to-last-ditch effort to give these bears a chance at living their life in a more natural environment, said JNP’s resource conservation manager, Dave Argument. The last resort ...

A park visitor has been fined $1,500 for enticing and disturbing wildlife in Jasper National Park. On June 15, Parks Canada dispatchers received a report of an individual throwing objects at a sow grizzly bear and her two cubs. The report stated the male was outside of his vehicle on the Maligne Lak...

Recently I’ve been watching Alone , a reality TV show where 10 people have to survive in the wilderness, by themselves, with no food or water and minimal gear. The last person standing is the winner. To give himself the best chance of winning, one of the participants (a Canadian) adopted an unusual ...

The grizzly bear family that startled picnickers at a popular day-use area 11 days ago have been relocated away from the Jasper townsite. On July 24, a sow grizzly and her two cubs got way too close for comfort to a family of visitors who had just laid out their lunch at Lake Annette. The bears acce...