EDMONTON — A University of Alberta biologist seeking to prevent grizzly bears from killing cattle found an unlikely weapon in an ordinary can of WD-40. Andrea Morehouse’s 15-year study, dubbed the intercept feeding program, attempted to change grizzly behaviour by collecting roadkill during the winter. The carcasses were then distributed by helicopter drop at various locations in hopes that bears emerging from hibernation would choose to feed on them instead of descending into cattle pastures.
Morehouse explained to the CBC that to track the number of grizzlies who went for the roadkill, her team chose “two trees that were near [each] site and we sprayed those trees with WD-40 and wrapped them in barbed wire. For whatever reason, that I don’t know, WD-40 elicits a rub response from bears and so they would come into the sites, feed on the roadkill and then rub on these artificial rub trees that we had collected.” In the end, while grizzlies took up the roadkill offer, it only whet their appetite, with the number of cattle they killed holding steady.
