A 41-year-old man has undergone surgery after being attacked by a black bear while mountain biking in the Rockies near the town of Banff.
Ian Syme, chief warden of Banff National Park, said the bear didn't leave the area after the attack and was shot. (CBC)
The cyclist, a local man whose name was not released, was on the Hoodoos-Bow River Trail just east of the town when he was attacked around 8:30 p.m. MDT on Friday.
Two other cyclists called for help after finding him bleeding from tear wounds to his chest and right shoulder.
Ian Syme, the chief warden of Banff National Park, said the bear – which was young and extremely thin – was behaving very unusually.
Confrontations between bears and humans are usually brief and the bear normally leaves the area after an attack, he said.
Instead, Syme said that when another warden and RCMP officers arrived at the scene, they could see a black bear near the man.
The bear was shot when it refused to move away.
A Parks Canada spokeswoman, Marjorie Huculak, said the bear is believed to be the animal that attacked, although it hasn't yet been confirmed.
The man who was mauled was taken to a hospital in Calgary, where he was listed in stable condition.
Bears attacked people close to the same area during two separate incidents in August 2005.
A grizzly that was with its cub attacked a Calgary man on the Bryant Creek Trail.
Four days earlier, a woman was mauled in the head by a grizzly near Lake Minnewanka after unknowingly getting between the animal and its two cubs.
The last fatal attack in Alberta was in June 2005, when a woman was killed near Canmore by a male grizzly.