A WOMAN who climbed a tree in a desperate attempt to escape a grizzly bear was mauled to death after the animal pursued her and dragged her back to the ground.

Isabelle Dubé had been jogging with two female friends on a popular hiking trail just outside Banff National Park in Canada. Her companions were able to back away from the 200lb (90kg) male bear and escape, but they could hear Ms Dubé’s screams as they reached a nearby golf course to raise the alarm.

David Ealy, an Alberta wildlife official, said: “It appears that Isabelle made the decision to climb a tree, and the others were able to back out of the area and run to get help.”

Wildlife officers rushed to the site, where the four-year-old bear was guarding the dead woman’s body. They killed it with a single shot from a high-powered rifle.

Ms Dubé, 36, a teacher, was married with a daughter aged 5. A competitive mountain biker and cross-country skier, she recently finished third in a 7-day 600km race. Her teammate, Maria Hawkins, was with her when the bear attacked.

The animal was well known to wildlife officials. They had tagged and relocated the bear ten days earlier after it had become a pest, eating from rubbish bins.

Mr Ealey said that the bear had been fitted with a radio collar and was being tracked when it attacked the woman. He defended the decision to move the bear rather than kill it. Officials had been hoping that the bear would start a new life in the woods rather than rely on raiding rubbish bins.

“This bear was not aggressive,” Mr Ealey said. “We decided it was important to shift it into a place still within its home range, where a bear is more likely to find food.”

However, the grizzly found its way back to Canmore, Alberta, within days and was spotted on the local golf course only hours before the attack.

Mr Ealey said that bears do not usually attack human beings unless they are surprised. Other officials said yesterday that the bear could not have been moved further away because it was likely to die if relocated too far from its home range. Killing the bear rather than moving it would have incurred the wrath of animal-lovers.

Officials are conducting a post-mortem examination on the bear to determine if it had been wounded or was ill, in an attempt to discover why it attacked Ms Dubé.

The area around Canmore is one of many in Canada, particularly in mountainous areas, where human beings and wild animals regularly come face to face, often with tragic results.

There have been two deaths and more than 20 maulings by bears in Alberta since 1992. But Ms Dubé is the first person killed by a bear in the province since 1998.

On May 28, Lyle Simpson, 32, was chased and bitten on the arm by a grizzly but managed to escape after kicking the bear in the face. He was among a group of hikers in the Waiparous area near Calgary, Alberta.

Eight days earlier Julia Gerlach, 27, a triathlete, had part of her scalp torn off and lost part of an ear after a black bear attack about 150km north of Fort Nelson, British Columbia.

And on October 8 last year Fran Nykoluk, 54, survived a bear attack by playing dead. She was attacked from behind by a bear while hunting with her husband in the Alberta foothills, south of Calgary. She suffered broken facial bones, needed stitches from ear to chin and also suffered injuries to her chest, legs and an arm.

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