Acrobatic black bear video garners fame for outfitter

Thevideo of an acrobatic black bear climbing across a rope to reach bait placed there by hunters has netted the outfitter international attention:so much attention he was forced to hireanagent.

"Everyday it's National Geographic, Discovery Channel,Daily Planet, CBC, Good Morning America, everybody just started phoningoffering me all this stuff," said Pat Garrett. "It was just overwhelming to tell you the truth."

• Acrobatic Alta. bear goes out on a line for a tasty treat

Garrett recently shot a commercial in Sweden and with the help of California-basedJukin Mediais lining up a few talk shows.

"I'm going toride this thing out as long as I can," he laughed.

Garrett, an oil rig foremanwho lives and works near Edmonton, runs anoutfitting business with his family that takes hunters up to the Fort McMurray area in the spring to shoot black bears.

"Wedon't eventhink twice about it," he said. "It's legal in Alberta. The bear population is so huge in Alberta, it's only helping."

Baiting is the only way to hunt bears in the remote country, Garrett said.

"The bush is so dense upthere that you have to or you can never hunt them," he said.

Baiting bears can save nursing sows

Baiting the bear allows hunters to see the animal more clearly andavoid shooting illegal bears,said Brendan Cox, publicaffairs officer with Alberta Fish and Wildlife.

"Whether or not it's a female with cubs, and then they can be more selective with the animal that they're choosing to harvest," he said.

Garrett said the area he hunts in, east of Fort McMurray, has no shortage of black bears.

"They relocated 160 bears out of Fort McMurray last year," he said.

Garrettshot the two-minute video last spring,postingit on YouTube shortly after.

But it wasn't until it was reposted by somebody overseas that it took off, being viewed more than 750,000 times, he said.

The bear wasn't the only star featured in the video, he said.

"The way I was laughing and how funny it wasa lot of people say that made the video," he said. "I didn't narrate it at all. It was just natural."

Garrett did get a "fair bit"of negative responseonline, but not over the idea of bears being baited and shot.

"The problem was when the bear let go," he said. "Inthe videoit looks fairly high, but it really isn't."

Asfor the bear in the video, it was a small sow feeding three cubs, that eventually shimmied along the rope to claim the beaver carcass bait, he said.