You Almost Missed: Watching Grouse’s resident grizzlies eating birthday cake

by Bridget Stringer-Holden on July 28th, 2023 at 3:58 PM

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Grouse Mountain’s resident grizzly bears, Grinder and Coola, are turning 22 on Saturday, and are celebrating with a bear-thday party—complete with cake and everything.

In partnership with the Grizzly Bear Foundation, Grouse’s third annual bear-thday celebration will feature family-friendly activities (including a craft station and scavenger hunt) and educational programs (including Indigenous storytelling and ranger talks). Of course, there will also be a now-iconic cake smash, which will see Grinder and Coola digging into a tiered masterpiece of fruit, vegetables, and even a little whipped cream.

Ken Macquisten, a veterinarian and the director of Grouse Mountain’s Wildlife Refuge, has been caring for Grinder and Coola since 2001.

“It all started off in kind of a funny way,” he says. The federal government was about to send him on a trip to China to bring back panda bears to live in the refuge, but then the provincial government called. They had encountered an orphaned grizzly bear in Invermere and wondered if Macquisten (and Stuart McLaughlin, then the owner of Grouse) could take him.

There was a lack of rehabilitation and rewilding programs for grizzlies at the time, so they decided to say yes.

“So, we got this little 12-pound male grizzly bear, that got the name Grinder, in June of 2001,” Macquisten recounts. Three weeks later, the government reached out again because three grizzlies were found orphaned in Bella Coola when their mother was hit by a vehicle. They went to rescue the bear triplets but only managed to catch one—who became Grouse’s second resident grizzly, named Coola.

Despite initial hesitation about whether they would like each other, Grinder and Coola became fast friends, and are still inseparable today.

“Here are two very large male grizzly bears who are now rarely ever more than 100 feet apart in their five-acre habitat,” Macquisten says. “They sleep side by side in the same den, wrestle all the time, and they really enjoy each other’s company—which goes against standard wisdom that grizzly bears are very independent animals.”

Their habitat features two ponds, a marsh, berry bushes to eat from, and hills to climb. While people were initially skeptical about bears living on Grouse Mountain, Macquisten says that everyone has come to realize that they have an exceptionally good quality of life.

“They’ve got lots of stimulation—but everybody needs to change once in a while,” Macquisten says. “And so we thought giving them a birthday cake, once a year, was probably a good idea.”

Once Grinder and Coola emerged from hibernation this year, Macquisten conducted his yearly veterinary exam. “To our delight, we found out they were in perfect shape,” he shares. “So I’m pretty sure they can handle any extra whipping cream on their bear-thday cake.”