'If the bear wanted me I'm the bear's lunch': Jogger comes close enough to touch grizzly in Calgary park

Six days before Fish and Wildlife officials closed a southwest Calgary park due to a bear in the area, a Calgary jogger came face to face with a massive grizzly.

Griffith Woods Park was closed to the public Tuesday night soofficers could set traps in an attempt to catch the bear.

• Grizzly bear in southwest Calgary prompts closure of Griffith Woods Park

Last Wednesday,Tresa Gibson was jogging with her dog it gave a few barks at something in the brush.

She assumed it was likely a deer or another smaller animal, but when she jogged up, she was terrified to see agrizzly chewing branches on the side of the trail.

She said by the time she noticed the bear's massive head, she was close enough to touch it.

"He is big, but honestly once I registered his head, I did go tofight or flight.I needed to get out of there," Gibson told CBC News Wednesday.

At that point, she called her dog and ran awayfast, for aboutkilometre and a half.

Gibson said she has run in the park every day for the past 10 years. Despite the odd wildlife encounter, she had never before come across a bear, she said.

"The truth is, if the bear wanted me, that was it. I'm the bear's lunch. So I think that was the scary part, to have to surrender that way. To know there's nothing I could truly do," she said.

'Just doing its own thing'

Trevor Miller, the superintendent for the southern region with Alberta Fish and Wildlife,says there havebeen at least five grizzly sightings reported in and around the parkin the past few weeks.

Despite multiple sightings, Fish and Wildlife didn't close the park to the public until Tuesday night.

Miller said they were reluctant to put traps in sooner, and risk attracting other animals.

"We generally do not take that kind of action until we know where the bear's frequenting over and over," he said.

Miller said the bear's behaviour didn't indicate it felt threatened by the presence of people.

"From what I understand it was a bear that was just doing its own thing," he said. "During the encounters, people got relatively close to it but it didn'tmake any aggressive postures or stance. Itwas quite tolerant, just went upon its normal feeding behaviour."

Fish and Wildlife have set up two large traps in the area. Miller says if officers catch the grizzly, it will be tagged and relocated.

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