Bear 148 Marc Breau

Trailer: Bear 148

Was Bear 148 in the wrong? Or were we? Either way, it was the bear that ended up dead
Undercurrent Podcast
Episode 0 - June 4, 2019

When Bear 148 walked across a parking lot — which she did, often — she could easily end up on the front page of a national newspaper.

That’s because she lived in Banff, Canada’s busiest national park. But when she crossed an invisible border and left the park, she set into motion a series of events that eventually led to her death nearly 500 km from her home.

Bear 148 tells the story of the life, and death, of one bear that captivated a community. A podcast by The Narwhal coming this June.

Episode Transcript

MOLLY: This the story of a bear.

JAY HONEYMAN: Certain areas, certain bears gain a greater profile. 148 has been in the news. You know she walks across a parking lot and she’s on the front page of a national newspaper.

MOLLY: Bear 148 was a female grizzly bear who lived most of her life in Banff – Canada’s busiest national park.

She wasn’t afraid of people. And she became a local celebrity who was seen, photographed and written up in the news – a lot.

JAY: So people came to know her and you know you come to know something and you feel attached to it and something bad happens and you feel bad.

MOLLY: When Bear 148 left the national park, she crossed an invisible border and walked into a new set of rules.

SARAH ELMELIGI: We’ve drawn all of these lines on a map and we’ve said okay over here do this and this will happen and do that and this will happen over there and it’s a very complex rulebook and bears can’t read.

MOLLY: Crossing that border would set into motion a series of events that would lead up to Bear 148’s death nearly 500 kilometres northwest of her home.

For The Narwhal, I’m Molly Segal and this is Bear 148, a podcast that tells the story of the life and death of a bear that captivated a community.

Subscribe now and find Bear 148 in your podcast feed in June 2019.

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Bear 148

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Episode 5: Why did the grizzly cross the road?

Highways, camp sites, park trails, train tracks, power lines — these man-made features fragment grizzly habitat in all sorts of ways and yet we expect bears to navigate from A to B, in search of food and mates, without getting into trouble. If they don't, they become a "nuisance bear"
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The borders we create are invisible to grizzly bears. But crossing those invisible borders, and stepping into a new set of rules, turned out to have deadly consequences for Bear 148
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