TRANSCRIPT: EPISODE 5

KINSHIP

<<music begins>>

(KEN MACQUISTEN, GUEST) 

I find bugs equally as fascinating as grizzly bears - I find the wonders of nature. I like being places where I think other people have not been before.

I've had many many personal moments with bears, I've hand raised bears and I've played with bears and what I've learned is that bears have an incredible sense of humor. They are extraordinarily fun loving - they just have fun! They really have a great sense of humor. And who knew, right? Until you actually  spend a lot of time with them.

And once you have met somebody that you know, you're gonna care more. 

My greatest fear is that humans are going to take over the entire planet at the expense of every other living thing on it. But people can relate to individuals…. and it seems that when people spend the time and the effort to take care of a particular animal...people really care and pay attention and are engaged. 

(NICHOLAS SCAPILLATI, HOST, GRIZZCAST) 

Grizzly bears have been portrayed by Hollywood as cuddly, bumbling, chatty friends wearing crop tops and singing songs, while simultaneously constructed as abnormally large people-eating predators, out to maul anything in their path.

<<sounds from the Jungle Book and Revenant>>

In folktales and myths they are powerful teachers.

How we portray the grizzly bear is a fascinating part of our culture- one that is changing, as wild places and wild animals slowly disappear. 

What do you think of when you imagine the grizzly bear? 

Is it a noble, majestic being traversing remote high altitudes in search of whitebark pine...or perhaps a serene creature, connected to rivers and forests, salmon and streams…Maybe a dedicated mother bear tending to her cubs year after year….

But what happens when grizzly bears and humans share the same landscape, the same home? What happens when a mother bear is killed and her orphaned cubs are left behind to fend for themselves?

<<intro chime>>

From the Grizzly Bear Foundation, this is GrizzCast. I’m Nicholas Scapillati, the Executive Director of the Grizzly Bear Foundation. 

The Grizzly Bear Foundation is a charitable organization dedicated to the welfare of the grizzly bear across North America. Guided by science and Indigenous knowledge, we work collaboratively to support the conservation of grizzly bears through research, public education, and advocacy.

<<<sound of chairlift comes in with general commotion, people speaking on radio, etc.>>

(KICKING HORSE MOUNTAIN RESORT, GUESTS) 

One truck base to bear refuge.

So as you can see, we're going to drive right beneath the gondola and the chairlift. The gondola goes directly over the bear refuge, but doesn't stop at it. But it provides a really neat Vantage for seeing Boo if he happens to be below you. Of course it doesn't stop there. Whereas the chairlift, that's how our guests come up for our visits. 

(NICHOLAS)

So this is Kicking Horse mountain. 

(KICKING HORSE MOUNTAIN RESORT, GUESTS) 

That's right. It's part of the interior ranges of Purcells and Selkirks Monashees and Cariboos. This road when we're driving up, it's not uncommon at all to see wild black bears on it. And the last few days, we've had black bears in the vicinity. On Saturday, we did have a black bear, that got into the grizzly bear refuge

(NICHOLAS)

into?

(KICKING HORSE MOUNTAIN RESORT, WILDLIFE RANGER ) 

Yep, that doesn't happen that often. But every now and then, a young black bear, often an independent cub who just left his mother, will find its way between the wires, the electric fencing and on the inside the refuge.  Out, it went as smoothly as it possibly could have. We have an isolation corner for Boo in that space was -

(NICHOLAS)

was he curious?

(KICKING HORSE MOUNTAIN RESORT, WILDLIFE RANGER) 

He was curious. He was smelling but didn't really have any reaction to this black bear and just moved into the isolation corner himself. We locked him in there, gave him some food and the black bear eventually flushed itself out.

(NICHOLAS)

This curious creature interacting with a wild black bear is a captive grizzly bear named Boo.

Surrounded by five national parks (Banff, Kootenay, Yoho, Mt Revelstoke, and Jasper),  we are currently at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in Golden, B.C.

Boo lives in a 20 acre, 9 hectare, wildlife refuge - a licensed & government permitted facility. But he didn’t always live here.

About twenty years ago, hundreds of kilometers away from Kicking Horse, Boo entered this world deep in the Cariboo Mountains, alongside his mother and two siblings. Five months later, on June 4th, 2002, Boo’s life changed forever.  Boo and his family were foraging alongside a highway, when suddenly a poacher drove up in his car, proceeded to get out, and shot and killed Boo’s mother.

<<<music>>

The three cubs were suddenly orphans. 

One of his siblings ran into the woods, never to be found again and the other two cubs, named after the mountain range in which they were found, Cari and Boo, climbed a nearby tree. The two bear cubs waited for days to hear their mother’s sign that it was safe to come down. 

It never came.

While the man who shot and killed the mother bear was convicted of two B.C. Wildlife Act violations and fined $9000, the fate for Boo and Cari was more ambiguous. At the time of their mothers death, there were no rescue or release programs in place for grizzly bears. Orphaned cubs were either lethally removed by conservation officers or abandoned with little chance of survival on their own.

But this time other plans were brewing for Boo and Cari….

While conservation officers attempted to retrieve the cubs from their tree, BC’s Ministry officials contacted Grouse Mountain and their Refuge for Endangered Wildlife to see if the cubs could be given a second chance at life and a new home. Grouse Mountain agreed and the baby bears, weighing only 12 pounds each, were flown to Vancouver, BC. There they joined two other orphaned grizzly bear cubs at the refuge; Grinder and Coola.

In know you work with grizzly bears, that’s why we’re  up here at Grouse Mountain. And that's how we came to meet you. But you've also worked with spotted owls and other species that are recovering. What's your point of view on how this plays an important part in ecosystem function and ecosystem restoration?

(KEN MACQUISTEN, GUEST) 

Well, it is hard to argue that sending animals into a rehab situation and then sending them out one animal at a time is really making a big difference for their population. But where it makes a really big difference is in how engaged people are in the process. Because it's very difficult to get really involved when you just hear about a population that's in trouble. 

But people can relate to individuals. And it seems that when people spend the time and the effort to take care of a particular animal, people really care and pay attention and are engaged. , That is to the benefit of their species because now we're becoming more aware. So unfortunately, you have to push some buttons in people that are emotional in order to get their attention, and there's nothing more emotional than hearing the suffering of a particular baby orphan animal, or a particular individual who's in trouble, to engage people in the bigger picture. So I think the rehab or the reintroduction programs are really significant in that regard, because it puts a face on these animals and once you have met somebody that you know, you're gonna care more.

(NICHOLAS)

I find that it is a great education tool for that very reason. Like, you engage people on this individual animal, they get to see the animal up close, maybe learn something more about it. But then you can talk about why it's in the situation. Is it loss of habitat? Is it coexistence? Are they orphaned, through a hunting situation or whatever it is, but it's a really important teaching tool.

High up in the Coast Mountains overlooking Vancouver, B.C., I am joined by one of Canada’s most respected veterinarians, Ken Macquisten. Ken is a scientist and Director of Grouse Mountain Refuge for Endangered Wildlife & Education, the current home of Grinder and Coola.

Many years ago in 2001, Grinder was found wandering alone on a logging road in the BC interior near Invermere. He weighed only 4.5 kilograms -  less than 10 pounds. The same year, Coola was rescued after his mother had been hit by a truck near Bella Coola. He was the only one of three cubs to survive. Today, they are living like brothers, cared for by Ken and the team at Grouse Mountain.

Making headlines in the local paper as a vet who has performed a “root canal on an elephant, cataract surgery on a Bengal tiger, and successfully fitted a sandhill crane with a prosthetic leg,” Ken is a kind, gentle, man that you can tell is well-liked and respected by all who surround him - humans and animals alike. 

(KEN) 

I'm a wildlife veterinarian or I'm a veterinarian of people's pets and wildlife. I became a veterinarian after having been a zookeeper in Edmonton, and have always known I wanted to work with wildlife, but I always felt badly about the way wildlife were being kept in captivity. So I thought I could work as an insider, that's why I became a zookeeper and trying to figure that I could help the existence of the animals that were there be better, and from the inside, and then I think I've taken that kind of role  as being a veterinarian too. Kind of got the inside track on a lot of wildlife issues. And, trying to make individual animals lives better, you know, one animal at a time, and also try to take those little bit of learnings for populations.  So that's kind of what's been driving me all my life. 

(NICHOLAS)

Wildlife is an interesting part of that because you mentioned you worked in zoos. 

(KEN) 

Yeah

(NICHOLAS)

You're really working with wild animals now a lot of the time and trying to get them either back into the wild if they can, or like you mentioned having a good existence. How's that career arc, where has it taken you now?

(KEN) 

Well, what's kind of interesting now is it's kind of become mainstream to be more concerned about the individual animals, they call it compassionate conservation. So veterinarians are, essentially we work one animal at a time, one herd at a time, one small population unit at a time. We're very much concerned for individuals , and the trend has been, and the past has been, that biologists, people that are concerned about conservation, are more concerned about the population. [2:41] But as the populations have become smaller people are becoming more concerned about the individual. So it's kind of what veterinarians have been doing all our lives, it's sort of now become kind of mainstream, okay, how we care about individual animals a lot more than we used to. So I would say in my career, that's the swing that has happened for wildlife.

We never in population biology would name an animal. In research that was considered taboo because all of a sudden you have some kind of emotional connection to this and how could you be independent in your analysis of the situation because now you're emotionally involved. So we would, we'd call bears number 66 or bear number 89 B or whatever because, and that still is a trend today but, a bigger trend is to say hey, we should get to know these animals as well as individuals. So I'm glad to see that happen and but -

(NICHOLAS)

If I could just interrupt you, it brings up a funny story for me - now we've got Coola and Grinder up here at Grouse Mountain and we got Boo up at Kicking Horse. But originally scientists would name them numbers like you said, like our orcas, you know, J pod, J25 and stuff. But now people are so concerned with them. They're like, yay J pod, like excited about these names, even though there are a number of these scientists tried to take the emotion out of it, but people are like, super excited about J25 just got born or whatever the number. 

(KEN) 

Yeah turns out a number is a name now, whereas before it was just a number. So yeah, so it's backfiring on ‘em a little bit that way  But it’s all about identifying the individual without trying to get an attachment to it, which is what the population biologists try to do. But up here at Grouse Mountain , I think it's really important that people get to know these bears because now they get to know Grinder and Coola. Some people come up every single day all year long to have their moments with them and watch them and they're considered friends.  And what happens is once you get to know them, then you start not being afraid of them anymore because one of the, of course you know, one of the biggest reasons for us killing bears is because people are afraid of them.  

It translates into all kinds of management techniques and worries and things  because we're essentially, as a species, we're afraid of bears. But, if you actually get to know a bear, then your fear level goes down. 

The fact is that captive wildlife programs are subject to criticism based on the fact that we have that interaction with them and that often it is at the expense of the captive animal. But if you can keep animals so that their welfare is the highest priority, and this interaction between humans and them is not at their expense, then I'm a big believer that there's so much to be learned and there's so much influence that those captive animals can have on the humans that get to know them.

(NICHOLAS)

While these bears will live their lives in captivity, as they can no longer return to the wild, they have taught people from around the world about how bears forage, play and sleep.

We are given a unique insight into bear behaviour and characteristics, challenging the narrative we are given by Hollywood. 

<< music >>

In 2003, Boo and his brother Cari were moved from Grouse Mountain to Kicking Horse Mountain Grizzly Bear Refuge, their forever home that was made just for them. Sadly, the following year in 2004, Cari did not wake from his winter hibernation and passed away within his den.  Boo continues to live at Kicking Horse in the largest enclosed and protected grizzly bear habitat in the world. 

(KICKING HORSE MOUNTAIN RESORT, WILDLIFE RANGER) 

You get some amazing mentors, when you come up here to start working with Boo, you quickly learn a lot about Grizzlies. And it's just I found a big passion now that I didn't realize I had before and educating people about conservation and about bears in particular, now

(NICHOLAS)

That's really interesting. When I first met Coola and Grinder at Grouse, I thought they weren't wonderful ambassadors for conservation. You know, this is when a lot of people come to an enclosure and they think it's like a zoo. But what Ken originally designed here is trying to do something different to allow bears to have natural behaviour and people to come and see Boo and one of the great stories I think is how did these bears become orphaned? Makes you think you can educate people about the situation that caused these and then that can be an opportunity for us, you know, and how we work with wild bears. Do people talk to you about that about Boo and how they relate to wild bears?

(KICKING HORSE MOUNTAIN RESORT, WILDLIFE RANGER) 

Definitely. A huge part of my tours is also talking to people about how to respect our wildlife. Ask 90% of people who come up into BC, why they're here and they always answer -  to see the grizzly bears. Yeah, and a big part of my tours is having them respect wildlife and understand, you know, that they are big, wild animals and they're not just here for our tourism, to live our lives, their lives. And yeah, just having that respect for our wildlife is one of the biggest things and understanding where you came from is huge as well.  

(KICKING HORSE MOUNTAIN RESORT, ROSS PRATHER - WILDLIFE RANGER) 

One of the greatest experiences I've had over the years of working up here is when you have a guest arrive, and they don't really know anything about the operation. They think you should never have a grizzly bear in captivity.. And then when they learn the story, you can just see their face relaxing.. And anyone who learns about the program understands that there's a lot more going on here than paying a few bucks to come and see a grizzly bear. And so that's very gratifying.

(NICHOLAS)

Though grizzly bears are not meant to live in captivity, these bears are seen as conservation ambassadors. 

Cari and Boo, Coola and Grinder, have all helped educate the public on the challenges grizzly bears face and their importance in our ecosystems. What we’ve learned from their experience helps future orphaned grizzly bear cubs get a second chance at life in the wild.

I want to talk about economics a little bit, which is important because it always comes up in the way we conserve animals and the value of ecotourism is always brought up as a way to protect areas and things like that. And this is a unique type of ecotourism, right? So just wondering what your thoughts are on how this plays into that greater role in this type of ecotourism and leading to more wilderness ecotourism. And I often say that Coola and Grinder are like these conservation ambassadors, you know. Just what are your thoughts on that?

(KEN) 

I think there's only two things that actually drive action for people. And one is emotion. And the other one is economics. And some people are driven by both. And some people are only driven by one of those. And unfortunately, there's a whole segment of society that is only driven by economics. And so realizing that means that if you really are trying to save something from a conservation point of view, you're going to have to reach those people and make the case why it is economically viable to have something of conservation value saved.

You can go out and mobilize people quite successfully on the basis of emotion because basically, like we were talking about, the orphan animals and those kinds of things do that successfully. But they just don't convince the people that say it's all about the economy. So the best way to reach those people are to make a conservation argument based on economics. And with the grizzly bears, it’s staring us right in the face. We've known for a long time that a live grizzly bear is worth way more to the economy in British Columbia than a dead bear. 

(NICHOLAS)

I've met people up here on Grouse Mountain, I’ve talked to them and they either went to Alaska or the Great Bear Rainforest to watch bears, or they had that experience and then wanted to come here to see them up close. 

(KEN) 

Well, sometimes you can spend a lot of time in the bush and not see one. And so this is the value of having them here is you're much more likely to see them here than perhaps you are somewhere else. Can't take away from the experience of seeing a bear wild in the bush. I mean that's a memorable one. Sometimes it takes days to have that experience. But it only takes a couple hours to have it up here.  As long as the experience is real and not at the expense of our bears up here, and we've never had any concern that way. Our bears are acting very natural up here. …

(NICHOLAS)

I also see that as like, you know, there's a lot of groups we're, Grizzly Bear Foundation’s working with Coast to Cascades and others to get, you know, to get grizzly bears into this ecosystem, right, that we're looking at from Grouse Mountain. There used to be grizzly bears here. We’ve heard stories of one or two roaming through but it's pretty good habitat. And eventually there will be grizzly bears here. It's important for this ecosystem. And Coola and Grinder, you know, are going to be one of those, like I said, conservation ambassadors that teach people so that they can be careful when they're out backcountry. But most of the time people are gonna want to see that.

(KEN) 

Yeah. So you mean the dispersal that's happening in a southward direction from the populations that are being protected – from north of here? Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, they're coming and pretty soon we're gonna have to deal with the reality that there's a grizzly bear close to the North Shore wandering up there. What are we gonna do about them? And are we going to let them be or are we going to pull-push the fear button and blast them away? But hopefully, like you say, hopefully Grinder and a Coola have opened the door to being a little friendlier to welcoming a little bit more expansion of grizzly bears. 

(NICHOLAS)

Despite challenges and controversies along the way, Ken has brought many dreams to fruition. He is full of passion and caring determination to connect with and understand the needs of the majestic grizzly bear - from individuals to the species as a whole.

(KEN) 

I've had many many personal moments with bears.   I've hand raised bears and I've played with bears and I've got to know quite a few individuals in my career. Sometimes the pure biologists will say that, you know, there's nothing to be learned from a captive animal. And I would say back to the biologist, I would say, well, if you told me that you were an expert about dogs, and you'd never lived with one before, you just observed them, could I really believe that you're really an expert about dogs? I said, some of the experts on bears are the people that have actually held them, and lived with them. And so we really got to learn from those people…

So what I've learned is that bears have an incredible sense of humour. They are extraordinarily fun loving. You know, take away the urge to go out and find something to eat, or someplace to go mate or someplace to feel secure – and when they've got those pressures off them, they just have fun. They really have a great sense of humour. And who knew, right? Until you actually spent a lot of time with them.

(NICHOLAS)

I always think of that, because, you know, it's almost like, we feel like we have to prove that bears or other species laugh or, you know, play or feel a certain way. When genetics tell us that we're, you know, we're so close that we share so many of the same genes. And our evolutionary history is so connected, that these things like touch and feel and sense of humour they've evolved over time of course animals. We’re just waiting for science to catch up with that but to bring it back to what First Nation say, you know, their stories for thousands of years of observation they've demonstrated that and worked it into stories.

(KEN) 

Anybody who spends any time with animals knows that they have those emotions. Like they are frustrated, they get excited about things, they feel sad, they have separation anxiety. For us to imagine that for some reason they don't have the same emotions as us is really beyond my ability to think. 

We used to, early in my career when we were spaying and neutering dogs and cats, we  thought they felt pain differently than we did.  So we didn't have to give pain control, because they'd sit in their kennels recovering from the surgery and they wouldn't be screaming and banging on the cage. They would sit there and just internalize it. So we thought, oh, they experience pain different than we do.

Well, how naive was that? So the same way with wild animals, if we can feel fear, and we can feel anxiety, and we can feel empathy and love and all those things, we should assume that the wild animals can too. 

(NICHOLAS)

In our next episode of GrizzCast, we will be speaking with Dr. Lana Ciarnello, Co-Chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Bear Specialist’s Group and  Human-Bear Conflict Expert Team and the lead scientist of Project Rewild. 

Project Rewild is a multi-year research project funded by the Grizzly Bear Foundation that gives orphaned grizzly bear cubs a second chance at life in the wild.

We work in partnership with the BC Provincial Government and the Northern Lights Wildlife Society – the only wildlife shelter in North America that rescues, cares for, and releases orphaned grizzly bear cubs. The results of this research will be used to inform and update policies regarding the fate of orphaned grizzly cubs and create best practices for rewilding efforts across the wild lands of the grizzly bear, from the temperate rainforest of the west coast, to the tundra of the Yukon, the Rocky Mountains and foothills of Alberta to the sagebrush grasslands of Yellowstone. 

As we continue to share these stories, please consider supporting GrizzCast with a financial gift by visiting our donation page today. Together, we can rewrite the fate of future grizzly bear cubs that may find themselves orphaned and in need of a safe refuge, before returning to their rightful place, in the wild we all share.

Thank you for listening to Episode 5 of GrizzCast. You can find our donation page, behind the scenes photos and videos, and grizzly bear resources on our website at grizzcast.grizzlybearfoundation.com. 

From the Grizzly Bear Foundation, this is GrizzCast.

GrizzCast is hosted by the Grizzly Bear Foundation - a charitable organization solely dedicated to the welfare of the grizzly bear. 

Share and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify… or wherever you find your podcasts.

I’m Nicholas Scapillati, the Executive Producer and your host.

This episode was written and edited by our Producer, Lindsay Marie Stewart. 

Our Story Producer is Leia Hutchings. 

Interviews were recorded on location by Kas Shield at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort in Golden, BC and Grouse Mountain Resort in Vancouver, BC.

ALO composed our theme music.

GrizzCast’s original album art is by Marie Wyatt, with graphic design by Lindsay Marie Stewart. 

Our promotion is by Taylor Green -- Share and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify… or wherever you find your podcasts.