Wildlife In The Canadian Rockies
How To See Wildlife In The Canadian Rockies
Wildlife is one of the main attractions to visiting Banff and the Canadian Rockies, with plenty of animals to see ranging from the lowly beaver to the mighty moose and everything in between. The only thing is- the animals always seem one elusive step ahead of you and are nowhere to be found, right?! Well read our Canadian Rockies Wildlife Viewing Guide to find out some common places to see animals and learn about the pattens of each animal type!
Banff and Jasper National Parks are teeming with wildlife and if you are lucky you could spot several types of animals on your hike in the Canadian Rockies. Here are a few of the more common types of wildlife to spot while hiking in the Rockies, as well as some tips on where are when to find them.
Remember, wildlife is wild and therefore can be hit or miss. We suggest you also plan other fun things to do in Banff and the Canadian Rockies to make sure you aren’t disappointed!
Notes About Wildlife Viewing in Canada
Wildlife viewing in the Canadian Rockies is very popular and can be very rewarding. It is important that we behave in a way that will promote sustainability and protect the future of the animals that we love to see. Here are some tips on making sure they are safe:
Don’t feed the wildlife. Please though. Everyone knows this, and yet most people still want to give the squirrels and birds just a little chunk of their granola bar. Well, that totally counts as feeding the wildlife and everyone does it, so please try not to. You can still get the photos of the squirrel.. just pretend to give it food if you have to. When you feed wildlife it disrupts the natural processes that are so important in the Rockies. There are birds that eat seeds, and if they get used to eating cashews and stop eating pine seeds, the pine trees will die off. They are already endangered. That might not sound so bad, but that pine tree is a keystone species, meaning that when it fails, the whole system comes crashing down. Just don’t feed the animals.
Maintain your distance from the animals. We see it all the time… tourists getting out of their cars and way too close to bears on the side of the road. ARE YOU CRAZY?! I saw someone almost get charged by a grizzly, because the sound of our tires on the gravel upset the bear. If the tourist was in their car they would have been safe. Just remember, these are wild animals. Mating elks are very dangerous, and bears- well you should already know they can do some damage. If they get used to humans, their behaviours change and eventually a park warden has to kill them. Let’s just stay a bit further back.
That’s it! Enjoy your trip to the Rockies and I hope you have some successful wildlife viewing!
where to see wildlife in the canadian rockies
There are many places to see wildlife in the Canadian Rockies, including the national parks and the areas just outside them. Spotting bears in Banff National Park is very common, and there are many places to find grizzlies in Jasper National Park as well. Hiking and walking tours in the Canadian Rockies are a great opportunity to spot wildlife too! Below is an overview on finding wildlife in each national park.
wildlife in banff national park- Animal viewing guide to the Rockies
Spotting wildlife in Banff national park is easy if you look in the right places. You can even see elk in Banff fairly often, as they hang around the gold course and along the side of the river. You can find black bears and grizzlies in Banff national park as well, plus a variety of ungulates like moose, elk, deer and caribou. Hoary marmots can be found in the alpine during hikes in Banff National Park- just listen for their distinctive whistle!
Here are a few key places to see wildlife in Banff National Park:
Norquay Road: At the big bend in the road you can park and enjoy the view. There are often big horn sheep in the grassy field right below you. Occasionally there are coyotes around here too. I also had a close encounter with a cougar right at the far end of this field, so keep your eyes open!
Minnewanka Loop: keep your eyes peeled for big horn sheep near the road by the lake and for elk in the open grassy areas and along the side of the road.
Lake Louise and Moraine Lake: Watch for black bears on the drive up to Moraine Lake. There are often grizzlies in Larch Valley during the fall, when they come out to eat berries. You will need to be in groups of four to access these trails in the fall.
Icefields Parkway: There are numerous areas to see wildlife on the Icefields Parkway. Big horn sheep are often see around “Big Bend” area, just south of the Athabasca Glacier viewpoint. It is not uncommon to see elk around Saskatchewan Crossing, and bears along the side of the road the entire way up. The Parker Ridge Hike is a great place to see big horn sheep on a sunny day!
Vermillion Lakes: This is where to see moose near Banff, as they are often in the marshy areas on the far side of the lake near dawn. Elk, deer and other animals are often in this area as well.
spotting animals in jasper national park- Where to see Wildlife
Jasper National Park is teeming with wildlife and if you are lucky, you may be able to see bears, big horn sheep and lots of elk around Jasper. For a decent chance to see elk in Jasper, head just south of town, near Wapiti Campground and look between the highway and the river. They often travel up and down the banks of the Athabasca River early in the mornings, especially in early summer when they have their young. Seeing black bears in Jasper National Park is common as well, especially during the drive to Maligne Lake. Keep your eyes peeled in the ditch. If you see something really black, it’s probably a black bear.
Here are a few key places to see wildlife in Jasper National Park:
Maligne Lake Road: watch for black bears in the ditch, and even grizzly bears along the side of the road. At the beginning of the road there are often elk along the open grassy areas.
Miette Hot Springs Road: the road to Miette Hot Springs can be a great place to see bears crossing the road. Watch your speed!
Pyramid Lake Road: keep your eyes peeled to see elk near Jasper. They are often along the side of the road, among the Aspen trees. There are often black bears and grizzly bears near Jasper along this road as well.
Wapiti Campground: Wapiti is a word for Elk, which is evident if you stay in this campground. Watch for elk travelling up and down the river banks in the early mornings of June and July.
wildlife in yoho national park- Canadian Rockies wildlife
Finding wildlife in Yoho National Park is easy most of the time. There are often elk walking along the braided gravel islands of the Kicking Horse River, especially in the spring and early summer as they raise their young calves. There are lots of black bears and grizzlies in Yoho National Park as well. They can be found in bushy areas with berries growing, like sun facing avalanche paths.
Here are a few ideas of where to see wildlife in Yoho National Park:
Kicking Horse River: Watch for mother elk with their calves along the river banks and islands during the spring.
Field: there are often black bears in the avalanche slides around the town of Field. They like the avalanche slides for the berry bushes that grow here, so keep a look out in berry season!
Emerald Lake: There are often black bears around the lake and can often be big horn sheep up high on the sunny slopes of the mountains surrounding the lake.
seeing wildlife in Kootenay national park- Wildlife viewing guide
Kootenay National Park isn’t as popular among visitors to the area, but it seems a very popular place for wildlife! I think a lot of this is because the railroad doesn’t travel through this corridor, which means that settlers didn’t fight forest fires in this region as much. Forest fires are really good at building habitat for the animals we like to see in the Rockies, like elk and bears. Grizzlies love to eat the Buffalo Berries that grow in the sunny patches on south facing slopes, and elk like to snack on the small Aspen Trees that grow low down in the sunny valley bottoms.
Some key places where to see animals in Kootenay National Park:
Burn patches: forest fires are scary and make the news, but they do wonders to create animal habitat in the Rocky Mountains. Look in the old fire sections to see elk and grizzly bears eating the new plants that pop up in the sun!
Along the side of the highway, particularly halfway from Banff to Radium. There are often deer and elk along the sides of the road.
Grizzly bears and black bears can often be seen from the road as they travel through the park.
Grizzly bears in the canadian rockies
Grizzly bears are a much revered and exciting animal to see in the Canadian Rockies. They can reach up to eight feet in height and can weigh to to 270 kg. They hibernate for roughly 6 months in the Rockies, so they need to work hard the rest of the year. Did you know that male grizzlies sometimes kill baby grizzly cubs?! Here are some tips on seeing grizzlies in Canada.
Look where their food is…. and they eat a lot of things, so good luck! Notable items on a grizzly’s menu are: goat and sheep that died during the winter, roots, ants and other insects, berries (lots of them, especially buffalo berries) and fattened up ground squirrels.
Grizzlies are most predictably found in open, sun facing slopes during the early fall, eating mass amounts of buffalo berries.
Grizzly bears can be brown, blond, and even near black! You can identify a grizzly by the hump on its shoulders, which comes from digging.
seeing black bears in the rockies
Black bears are fairly common to see in the Rockies, and it’s great to know that their population is actually on the rise, so good job bears! They usually weigh around 200 kg, and stand up to seven feet tall. Black bears in the Canadian Rockies also hibernate for just over 6 months. They usually give birth every 2 years, and raise their young for roughly 18 months. Here are some tips on seeing black bears in the Rockies:
Look where their food is… Black bears are omnivores, and rarely hunt live game. Their diet consists of berries, insects, roots, grasses, animal carcasses, and fish.
Black bears are generally seen closer to human centres than grizzlies are.
You can recognize them by the lack of a hump between their shoulders and the straight line from their forehead to the tip of their nose. Their colours range from white to brown to black and even black-blue.
Black bears seem to like disturbed areas, where many edible shrubs grow, like burned patches, roadside and avalanche paths.
finding elk in the canadian rockies
Elk are one of the more common types of wildlife to spot in the Rockies, though they are still very special. They can run over forty miles per hour and can jump over eight feet high! They mate in the fall, during rutting season, which is when their antlers are the largest. During this time, and all other times, elk should be considered dangerous and can be very territorial. Here are some tips on where to see elk near Banff and in the Canadian Rockies.
Elk eat grasses, small bushes and saplings. Like grizzly bears, they don’t seem to mind the bitter buffalo berry bushes either.
Elk are often see travelling along river banks in the early morning.
Mother elk usually travel in large herds in the spring and early summer when they are raising their calves.
Female elk usually live in harems of roughly twenty females with one bull elk who protects them.
where to find moose near banff
Moose are the largest animals found in North America and are generally up to 7 feet tall, weighing up to 1500 pounds. It is estimated that there are roughly 1.5 million moose in the world, spread across wild, open spaces in the northern hemisphere. Moose are hard to find in the Canadian Rockies, but that’s not for a lack of them. A moose and I nearly had a head on collision once during a run!
Moose are most active and easy to spot during dawn and dusk.
They eat twigs, willows, aspen and other brush, especially marshland brush.
The best palces to see moose are often in wet areas, often waist deep in water, munching away.
Moose can run up to 50 km, and can swim almost 20 km per hour!
Moose in the Canadian Rockies eat up to 70 pounds of food per day!
where to find hoary marmots in the rockies
Hoary marmot are the largest of the ground squirrels in the Canadian Rockies. They weigh up to 7 kg and are just over two feet long. How to identify a hoary marmot? The term hoary refers to the silver, grey fur on their back, and they have a little white patch around their nose. Did you know that hoary marmots are the kings of hibernation? They sleep between 7-8 months of the year.
Hoary marmots in the Canadian Rockies live in small colonies of up to 35 individuals.
Marmot live in cold, barren alpine areas, usually with lots of grass and sedges.
Hoary Marmot are often heard before being seen. Listen for a shrill whistle, made by the lookout of the colony. When you hear this, look for a marmot perched on a rock and keeping an eye out on you.
big horn sheep- where to find them
Did you know that big horn sheep in the Canadian Rockies are relatives of domestic farmed sheep? You can tell the difference between males and females by the curled horns on males’ (rams’) heads and the short, spiked horns on females (ewes). Big horn sheep weigh up to 120 kg and can live up to 15 years. Here are some tips on seeing bighorn sheep near Banff, Lake Louise and the Rockies.
Big horn sheep graze on grasses and small shrubs that grow in the Canadian Rockies.
Big horn sheep live in steep, rocky terrain in the alpine.
Big horn sheep have very keen eyesight to help them spot and avoid predators, like bears, wolves and cougars.
They are very nimble and can run up nearly sheer cliffs. They can stand on a ledge the size of a mail envelope!
Viewing guide to wildlife in the Canadian Rockies
It is easy to spot wildlife while hiking in Canada, especially in the Canadian Rockies. Just remember, no matter when you visit the Rockies there are ample opportunities to see wildlife. That being said, I always recommend keeping in mind that there is so much more than wildlife to enjoy during your trip. Wildlife is, well…. wild, so we can’t control it. Sometimes you hit the mother load, sometimes you strike out, but that’s what makes seeing wild animals so special! Below are a few of our tours in the Rockies where we often enjoy some amazing wildlife sightings. By camping in the Rockies, you more than double your chance of seeing wildlife!
Another incredible wildlife viewing destination is Yukon Territory.
You can check out our Vancouver Island Wildlife Viewing Guide here too!
Related tours
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7 day rockies camping adventure
12 day rockies hiking tour- Camping Based
About the author
Alex Ross- Lead Guide/ Founder
Let’s just say Alex didn’t want to work a real job when he grew up. He had his heart set on avoiding any kind of accounting, human resources, compliance, marketing and business administration, in order to be free for his dream job as a ski guide. Now he guides people on skis, but mostly does accounting, human resources, compliance, marketing and business administration work!