"Macquisten had placed the wolves and bears in the same enclosure 10 days ago hoping they would provide continuous stimulation for each other. Prior to that they had occupied separate but adjacent enclosures. "One of the biggest challenges of caring for captive bears and wolves is boredom," Macquisten said. "In the woods, they need their wits to survive. So what provides interest is the presence of another species they can't quite figure out, but are constantly trying to." He said wolves and European brown bears have been kept successfully in German and Swedish zoos for years, and he hoped to duplicate that success on Grouse Mountain. But Paul Paquet, a wolf behaviour specialist with the University of Calgary, said while he applauds Macquisten's attempt to provide the animals with enrichment, "the outcome was predictable." "Wolves and bears do get along in the proper environment, but they also are competitive, and that competition is usually around a particular resource, like food," Paquet said. "There is an antipathy there, and it's a natural antipathy because they're competitors." He also suspects that because the wolves were captive-born, they may not be as savvy as fully wild wolves, and therefore may not have realized the danger they were in."
Why would Grouse Mountain Company veterinarian and scientist, Dr Ken Macquisten, put wolves and grizzlies together when any sensible person could have predicted this outcome? Food and sex (territory is about food and sex) are the two things that animals fight over. Tossing a bone into the middle of two recently mixed packs was either a deliberate test to see what would happen, or it was incomprehensibly ignorant and should not ever be referred to as science.
Putting aside the question of ignorance (which is not out of the question: our experience with most animal "experts" is that they are astonishingly ignorant), what reason could there be for doing this deliberately?
We believe that all use of animals is all about money. Land costs money, so squeezing zoo exhibits together takes less land and makes the exhibits more attractive to the Grouse Mountain Company customers. The Grouse Mountain Company is about money. One of its attractions appeared to the gullible to be about science, but after this display of ignorance of animal behaviour, it is clear that it is a badly-run zoo.
All agencies that fund this zoo, and especially those using tax-payers' money, ought to clean their hands of this in a hurry before they are discredited by this zoo.