Experts fear that when B.C.’s black bears wake up from their deep winter sleep a few weeks from now, they’ll find a teddy bears’ picnic — and it won’t be down in the woods.
As development encroaches on forested bear habitats, there remains a strong need for residents to become “Bear Aware” and get educated about removing attractants such as garbage and birdseed, they warn.
“It’s partly that we’re encroaching on their territory but also that we’ve made our communities very attractive to bears,” said Frank Ritcey, provincial coordinator for WildSafe B.C., adding the hungry black bears will start making appearances between mid-April to early May.
“The big issue, of course, is managing the garbage right now.”
Ritcey developed an online tool to track sightings of black bears and other wildlife in B.C. called the Wildlife Alert Reporting Program (WARP), which recorded 194 black bear sightings by March 20 (down from 236 during the same period last year.)
Over the past week, WARP received reports of black bears on Burnaby Mountain, where B.C. conservation officers recently set a live trap near a townhouse complex to catch a young garbage-habituated bear that didn’t get enough sleep this winter.
Conversation officer Sgt. Todd Hunter was disappointed Saturday morning to find someone had tampered with the trap by closing it — a criminal offence under the Wildlife Act that could lead to charges.
“It’s serious,” Hunter said. “They’re diminishing the public’s safety by doing that.”
The young bear, which destroyed a resident’s fence Friday, was still on the lam Saturday and now faces relocation or destruction, both of which Hunter said could have been avoided.
“We need people on our side,” he said. “If they don’t like seeing the end result of a bear having to be destroyed,” people need to co-operate and remove attractants.
Those who don’t could face written warnings, $230 violation tickets or $575 fines.
In the Tri-Cities, bear-sightings remain relatively low so far this year, said Drake Stephens, urban wildlife co-ordinator for the City of Coquitlam.
Still, educating residents on bear safety remains a top priority.
“We’re developing into bear habitat, we have hundreds of acres of blueberry fields and we have a lot of new residents,” Stephens said. “It’s still a challenge.”
Neighbours are communicating about the need to secure garbage and not leave it outdoors the night before collection, but “there’s no shortage of people still doing that thinking there’s no bears around,” he said, adding that such safety measures should be taken year-round.
“People are so much better” now with securing garbage on the North Shore, said Christine Miller, executive director of the North Shore Black Bear Society.
Miller said the number of sightings was very low last year but there is still concern around backyard chickens attracting bears in the City of North 91ԭ, where electric fencing to keep predators out of coops isn’t a bylaw requirement.
She added that while bear education programs in the Tri-Cities and North Shore have been effective, there remains a strong need for such a program in Burnaby, something Hunter said is currently in the works.
BLACK BEAR MANAGEMENT TIPS:
• Keep your garbage inside or secured until the day of collection. Garbage is the No. 1 attractant cited in reports to the provincial hotline.
• Manage your fruit trees: Don’t let windfalls accumulate, and pick fruit as it ripens.
• Don’t put out bird feeders when bears are active: A kilo of birdseed has approximately 8,000 calories and is a great reward for a hungry bear.
• Keep your compost working properly with lots of brown materials and a regular schedule of turning.
• If you have livestock or backyard chickens, use a properly installed and maintained electric fence to keep bears and livestock apart.
— Source: WildSafe B.C.
