Ronnie Mundell, eight years old, stares at a black bear which was killed down the street from him in Coquitlam on August 7, 2008. The bear was shot by the RCMP after it climbed in through the window of a basement apartment on Turnberry Lane.JENNIFER ROBERTS/The Globe and Mail
Canadians thrill to live in proximity to wildlife. In Vancouver, when a pod of orcas detours through Burrard Inlet, the cameras come out and videos go viral. When raccoons defeat Toronto trash bins, images of the tricky masked bandits prying open the lids are printed on T-shirts and sold at the Art Gallery of Ontario. And who didn’t chuckle at footage of a black bear lounging in a North Vancouver swimming pool during a heat wave a few summers back?
We shouldn’t have laughed. Because by the time a bear is brave enough to venture that close to people’s homes, its life is in danger.
Bears who move into our turf and develop a taste for our food – such as the bear that barged into a North Van kitchen and snarfed a tray of croissants this summer – usually end up dead. Not euthanized, the softer term peddled by the B.C. Conservation Officer Service (COS). That word implies a kinder death for an animal that is sick or injured. Bears who grow habituated to humans, and raid backyard fruit trees and carelessly stored garbage, are simply shot and killed because we don’t want to risk having such powerful and potentially dangerous animals so nearby.
Most nature-loving Canadians recoil at the sight of a healthy animal being put down. That sentiment gave rise to a dangerous circus in Coquitlam recently, when three residents tried to stand in the way of conservation officers trying to track and kill a mother bear and two cubs, who were feeding on garbage and had become habituated to humans. As the mother and cubs fled, their human protectors armed with smartphones blocked and filmed the gun-wielding officers. The people were arrested after a tense standoff. The bears were ultimately shot.
Careless humans are mostly to blame for bear deaths – at least 38 in the Lower Mainland so far this summer. More than 40 bears a year have been killed in the Lower Mainland since 2016, numbers which are sadly high, says Chris Doyle, deputy chief with the COS. He says Coquitlam, where at least eight of the bears were killed, is one of the most bear-smart municipalities. The city has a robust public-education campaign instructing residents to remove food attractants such as fruit from their yards and strict rules about garbage disposal. And still, the city has issued more than 800 warnings and 50 tickets for unsecured garbage this year to people who haven’t learned.
The COS gets a bad rap from wildlife advocates such as Wayne McCrory, a bear biologist and adviser to the Get Bear Smart Society. He says 40 bear deaths a year is far too many. “It must be a cleanup year, where they go in and try to reduce the numbers.”
Mr. McCrory says budget and staffing constraints prevent officers from using non-lethal techniques – relocation or aversion methods such as bangers, rubber bullets or even Karelian bear dogs – to deter bears showing early signs of habituation. Relocation efforts, which work only part of the time, for the most part ceased about a decade ago.
Mr. Doyle says bear-aversion tactics and relocation are still options, but admits relocations have dropped off. They are tricky, because plunking a bear into another bear’s territory leads to conflict and will likely drive one or the other animal back to easier food sources in the city. Scientists concur that long-distance relocations don’t have good outcomes for the bears. As for aversion methods, nothing works on a bear already hooked on garbage. “If the food is accessible, the bear will find a way to get there,” Mr. Doyle says.
The answer of course lies with humans. If there’s nothing for bears to eat, they typically avoid us. So, if you live near the wild and enjoy nature, install electric fencing around your fruit trees. Put the garbage out in its properly latched container as close as possible to the arrival of the trucks.
If you see a bear in the neighbourhood, report it quickly and try making loud noises to scare it away. And given this summer’s croissant raid, keep more than your screen door closed when baking.
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