Q&A: How wildlife officers address a bear and cubs in Yellowknife

A bear and three cubs have spent most of this week wandering Yellowknife, preoccupying residents – and wildlife officers.

While bears commonly wander into neighbourhoods of the territorial capital, a family of four making appearances for several days is unusual.

Schools in the city had to take precautions earlier in the week when the bears were considered too close for comfort.

Julian Sabourin is part of the team of wildlife officers at the NWT’s Department of Environment and Climate Change tasked with keeping people safe when bears are in town.

We asked him how wildlife officers approach a situation like this, with multiple cubs involved, and what the latest update is.

This interview was recorded on September 17, 2026. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Ollie Williams: Julian, what’s the latest on the bears?

Julian Sabourin: It seems like things have quieted down a little bit in regards to bear sightings in and around Yellowknife. Definitely earlier in the week – Monday, Tuesday – we got quite a few phone calls regarding a sow and three cubs.

With it being mid-September, which is a pretty critical time for bears to start putting on weight for winter, it seems the sow and cubs were eating berries on the outskirts of Yellowknife. In a couple situations, they ended up getting a little bit too close to some of our residential areas and schools here.

When there are that many cubs, how does that change the dynamic for wildlife officers compared to a bear on its own?

It definitely creates more challenges. From one perspective, it’s just more bears to try to push out of an area.

On Monday, we were able to push the mother bear out of the area but then the cubs were still in the area. Obviously, the sow isn’t going to leave without her cubs. So the next step is trying to get the cubs out of the neighbourhood, which also can be quite challenging because although they’re small, they’re quite agile, so it takes a little bit of teamwork to get them to move along.

We saw photos online where people were describing wildlife officers using fishing nets, different techniques to try to get the bears to go where you wanted them to go. What kinds of technique do you have if you’re dealing with four bears at the same time?

On Monday, when the sow and cubs got a bit close to one of our neighbourhoods, we were able to use non-lethal deterrents for the sow – things like non-lethal rubber slugs, bear bangers – to get the sow moving along.

With the cubs, being a bit smaller, it takes different techniques. We were able to use a large fishing net to scoop them and move them in the direction we wanted to go, or give them gentle pokes to move them in the direction we wanted.

In this kind of situation, people wonder about whether the bears are going to end up having to be killed – or how hard it would be to relocate the entire family. What is the desired outcome from a wildlife officer’s point of view and how do you get there?

Every time we respond to a bear call, it’s always a little bit different.

In this situation, the sow and cubs ended up a bit too close into town. They didn’t do anything we didn’t want them to do, like get into garbage. They were fearful of us when we were doing things like the bear bangers, yelling, using non-lethal rubber slugs. We were getting the response we wanted, which is we want to make sure the bear is scared of humans. We were happy with the way the bears were responding.

A situation like that, where we have bears just doing normal bear things such as eating berries, typically doesn’t warrant being dispatched. In that scenario, when bears do come into close proximity to town, typically we’re trying to ensure public safety – informing members of the public, “Hey, we have a bear in the area right now.”

In the situation on Monday, they were also in pretty close proximity to schools, so we were ensuring the schools were aware of the situation. Ultimately, if it’s a bear doing normal bear things, we are just trying to push them out of the residential area and back into the forested area, and let them continue on.

How unusual is it to be dealing with a family of that size in urban Yellowknife?

I’ve been in Yellowknife for two years and this is the first time in Yellowknife that I’ve had to respond to a sow and cubs. So not super common, that’s for sure.

You said it’s quieted down a little now. Do you have a handle on where that family has gone?

The last reported sighting was in the Kam Lake area, so it seems like they’re moving along. If the calls are quieting down, I imagine they’re probably remaining pretty low-key somewhere in a forested area, out of the public’s eye.

In an ideal world, they just continue moving along and staying out of the close proximity of Yellowknife.

We are surrounded by boreal forest so from time to time, we do get bears coming close to our communities. The majority of the time, it’s bears doing normal bear things.

We need to make sure we’re doing our part to help keep these bears not habituated to people – managing attractants on properties, garbage, barbecues and all that. And if you do have any sightings of bears in close proximity to Yellowknife, report that to our North Slave wildlife line.