Hunter criticized for letting grizzly bears eat elk carcass, officials say was not illegal

There are a couple of reasons why you shouldn’t leave your legally harvested elk carcass within reach of a family of grizzly bears. You’re guaranteed to lose a portion of the animal, and you’ll teach the bears a bad lesson (that backyards are great places to score easy meals). You may also get some flack from your neighbors, who might not be too pleased to see a sow and three cubs pulling an elk carcass off the front loader of your tractor.

This exact scenario played out this month in Mountain View County, Alberta, when a photo of the scene was shared on social media. The photo shows a sow reaching up to grab a moose carcass hanging from a tractor while her cubs feed just below. It angered some local residents, according to The Albertan, and the hunter responsible for hanging his elk was criticized and reported to Alberta Fish and Wildlife. However, after an investigation, officials determined that the hunter did nothing illegal and was in full compliance with regulations.

The Albertan reports that the photo was taken about 50 miles north of Cochrane, near the communities of Bergen and Fallen Timber. The local news station does not name the elk hunter or specify where the post came from, only that it was shared with a group in the Sundre area. Outdoor living reached out to Alberta Fish and Wildlife to confirm this reporting, and government spokesperson Laura Vilchis explained the basic facts in an emailed statement.

“On September 10, Alberta Fish and Wildlife Enforcement Services received reports of social media posts showing a grizzly bear and her three cubs feeding on a harvested elk carcass,” Vilchis wrote in the statement. “Fish and Wildlife officers visited the location where the elk had been harvested to conduct a compliance check … After a thorough review, the officer confirmed that the hunter was in compliance with all regulations.”

Vilchis noted a few of the major wildlife violations that investigators were looking for, such as tagging the animal immediately and making sure that no part of the meat was wasted. She didn’t specify what was left of the elk carcass when investigators arrived, but since the hunter wasn’t charged with a violation, it’s possible that they removed all of the meat from the carcass before it was eaten by the bears. The cape may have been damaged, but with the cape still on the carcass, it seems unlikely that he planted it to mount the bull (although it’s a good one).

Read more: Idaho archers kill grizzly in self-defense in ‘surprise encounter’ near Yellowstone

Vilchis added that now that the elk bow and arrow season has begun, non-hunters need to realize that hunters are on the landscape. (And in many cases, they understand the rules better than the non-hunting public.)

“Hunters know there are rules to follow,” Vilchis says, “and if they don’t follow the rules, they get sued.”