A Canadian couple who were mauled to death along with their dog by a grizzly bear in Banff National Park have been identified by their heartbroken family.
Doug Inglis and Jenny Gusse, both 62, were experienced backcountry campers who took two-week trips every year, usually in the spring and fall. The couple from Lethbridge, Alberta, had known each other since college.
Doug’s uncle, Colin Inglis, told the story CBC: ‘They are a couple who loved each other and loved the outdoors. And they had a lot of experience with the outdoors, whether it was serious hiking or canoeing, whitewater canoeing in the North.”
Around 8 p.m. Friday, Colin said he got a horrifying SOS message from the couple’s GPS device: “Bear attack bad.”
Parks Canada was immediately alerted, but was unable to send a helicopter due to bad weather. When they arrived at 1 a.m., they found Doug, Jenny and their beloved Border Collie, Tris, lying dead next to two empty cans of bear spray.
The grizzly bear, a skinny old female, was discovered nearby and shot dead when it attacked the team.
Doug Inglis and Jenny Gusse, both 62, were mauled to death by a grizzly bear in Banff National Park on Friday evening
Around 8pm on Friday, Colin Inglis, a relative of the couple, said he received a horrific SOS message from the couple’s GPS device: ‘Bear attack bad’ (Stock Image)
The couple camped in the Red Deer River Valley west of Ya Ha Tinda Ranch
‘That evening was of course the beginning of what is still a grieving process. You get that message, you know something bad is going on. You don’t have a lot of information,” Colin told CBC.
He said the couple, who were in the Red Deer River Valley west of the Ya Ha Tinda Ranch, had simply been in the “wrong place at the wrong time.”
Rescuers of the couple had hung the food properly to avoid attracting animals, Parks Canada said in a statement.
The deaths were the first of a grizzly bear in Banff National Park in decades and involved a bear that was not collared, tagged or previously known to park staff, the statement said.
Colin told CBC he tries to remember the good times he had with the couple and how much they enjoyed being outdoors.
“I was hiking with Doug in Waterton in June and we were looking forward to many more adventures. Just like many of his friends. “One of his friends told me that one of the things they were looking forward to was taking their son out with Doug because he was so knowledgeable,” he added.
“And Jenny… she was the botanist. She could identify all these beautiful plants that were there, this berry or this flower. And so that’s the kind of love that they had for the environment that they were in.”
Parks Canada determined through a necropsy that the bear was a non-lactating older female, estimated to be more than 25 years old. The bear’s condition was fair, but it had less body fat than normal for the time of year and had poor teeth.
Kim Titchener, a bear expert and family friend, told CTV News that the couple were “great people” and “great adventurers.”
She said they spent a lot of time in the wilderness and had a lot of expertise, “so it’s obviously a big shock to the family.”
Tichtner is the founder of Bear Safety & More Inc. and RecSafe with Wildlife, a free resource that provides education on ways to live safely with animals like bears.
She has been working on wildlife conflict reduction programs and providing training on bear safety and bear assessment for nearly two decades.
Kim Titchener, a family friend who works in wildlife conflict resolution, says fatal attacks are extremely rare
She described the slain couple as ‘big people’ and ‘great adventurers’
Tichtner said there are about 60 grizzly bears in Banff National Park The number of encounters increases as more people go outside, with fatal attacks being extremely rare.
“It’s actually exactly why we’re seeing more attacks, is that more people are going out and unfortunately they’re not being informed about it,” she said, adding that only 14 percent of grizzly bear attacks worldwide result in fatalities.
Bear sightings increase in the fall as the animals become more active in their search for food before hibernating during the cold winter months.
“When people encounter grizzlies, often the grizzly goes one way and the people go another,” Titchener said.
She added that while she is not yet aware of the details of the incident, most bear attacks are usually caused by surprise collisions.
“They could have surprised a bear at close range and had an encounter that led to a defensive attack,” she said.
This happens when a bear sees people as a threat to itself, its food source, or its cubs.
Titchener added, “It is extremely rare to see predatory attacks by grizzly bears, but not unheard of.”
“Parks Canada does not believe at this time that another bear was involved,” the park said, adding that an area closure has been implemented out of an abundance of caution.
Bear sightings increase in the fall as they more actively search for food before hibernating during the cold winter months. Banff National Park, which attracts more than 4 million tourists annually, is home to both grizzlies and black bears.
There are approximately 60 grizzly bears in Banff National Park and are considered an endangered population in Alberta.
In the past ten years, there have been three recorded non-fatal contact encounters with grizzly bears in the park.