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Mountain News: Grizzly cubs victims to their own in Banff

BANFF, Alberta — It's a bear-kill-bear world in the Kananaskis Country south of Banff National Park.
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BEAR-kill-BEAR WORLD A male grizzly bear in Banf, Alta. is suspected of killing a yearling cub recently. Photo by bernhard richter / shutterstock

BANFF, Alberta — It's a bear-kill-bear world in the Kananaskis Country south of Banff National Park.

A male grizzly is suspected of killing a yearling cub recently, and a conservation officer tells the Rocky Mountain Outlook that young grizzlies are often killed by males. Their motives? Sex.

"It's the tail end of mating season, and male bears do kill yearlings or cubs that are travelling with females," explains Arian Spiteri. "They do it out of a drive to reproduce. When a female loses her cub, that can induce the female into estrus and make her able to mate again."

The wildlife officer also said that boar grizzlies may kill the yearlings in order to eat them.

The sow in this case has lost a great many of her cubs. She's now 12 and was first captured and collared in 2006. She has produced eight cubs since then, but so far five have died. Not all were necessarily killed by males, however, and one was the victim of a rare attack by a female grizzly. "We don't know what the motivation was," Spiteri said.

Major assemblage of private jets in idaho

SUN VALLEY, Idaho — In 2013, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos began the deal to purchase The Washington Post at a conference held in Sun Valley. That same Allen & Co. conference germinated Facebook's $19-billion acquisition of mobile messaging service Whatsapp.

So what happened at this year's gathering of many of the most powerful, richest elites in the American media, technology and sports worlds?

We'll find out later. As the Idaho Mountain Express observes, the ink-stained wretches known as reporters are denied access to the proceedings, being forced to shout out questions to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Google co-founder Larry Page, and other attendees from behind velvet ropes.

Here's a small sampling of this year's participants: chief executives Tim Cook from Apple and Bob Iger from Disney, California Gov. Jerry Brown, and Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel. Plus: Bill and Melinda Gates, media heavyweight Rupert Murdoch, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and a few dozen others with the means to fly first class if they don't already have their own jets.

The Express reports that how many photographs are taken as people walk by the ropes on their way to get lunch is one way of measuring how important the business press sees an individual. When Cook and Iger passed, the "cameras sounded like small bursts of rapid gunfire," reports the newspaper. Former NBA commissioner David Stern and ex-MLB commissioner Bud Selig? Not so much.

Vail Resorts readies new Park City brand

PARK CITY, Utah — Get ready for a new name for the ski area formerly called Park City Mountain Resort. Vail Resorts plans a new logo and will announce that and other rebranding elements in late July, reports The Park Record. But a recent press release used the name "Park City Mountain."

Diving more difficult in high-altitude lakes

GRAND LAKE, Colo. — A man drowned in Granby Reservoir over the July 4 weekend, raising questions about why, with so many reservoirs in the Grand Lake-Granby area, there isn't a local dive team to carry out rescues or, at least, body recoveries.

One answer uncovered by the Sky Hi News is that drownings are relatively infrequent. The last one occurred in 2006. But then keeping such teams outfitted and trained costs a lot of money.

Body recoveries become more difficult at higher elevations because of the thinner air. At between 2,438 and 2,743 metres, divers must descend more slowly, to avoid what is commonly called the bends. At Granby Reservoir, that means 10 minutes of the oxygen supply is used to go down, 10 minutes for looking for the body, and 10 minutes to rise, with 10 minutes left over for an emergency.

To locate bodies, search teams use Sonar technology.