Bear Aware sensibilities take a step closer to becoming law

By Andrew Zwicker

Rossland’s continuing effort to become a Bear Smart-certified community took three steps forward this week as a new bylaw aimed at reducing wildlife attractants in town passed 1st, 2nd and 3rd readings at this Monday's council meeting. If the bylaw gets adopted when it comes back before council in two weeks, it will represent the culmination of years of effort by various Bear Aware coordinators and three different councils.

The most recent effort was spearheaded by Sharon Wieder, Rossland’s Bear Aware coordinator late last summer. One of the action items in the provincial Bear Smart certification process is for municipalities to include language in their bylaws regarding wildlife attractants, garbage storage and waste management. Weider presented the idea to council last fall. At that time the potential new bylaw was deferred and sent back to city staff to work on the bylaw to address some of the concerns council members expressed.

During that time the City of Kamloops enacted a similar bylaw and became Bear Smart. Shortly afterward, Squamish followed suit. The documents those two cities used and created in their processes were then passed along to Rossland to use as working templates for how the bylaw could be put together here.

The general intent of the bylaw is to make attractants inaccessible to not just bears but all wildlife. Wildlife is defined in this potential bylaw as the usual suspects: bears, coyotes, raccoons, skunk, ravens, crows and --perhaps of particular importance in Rossland--domesticated animals running at large.

While not necessarily finished yet, the proposed bylaw contains provisions such as

•  Every owner or occupier of real property shall ensure that a wildlife resistant container or wildlife resistant enclosure on such real property is maintained in good condition and kept in a clean and sanitary condition, kept closed and secure when refuse is not being deposited or emptied and if damaged, repaired within seven days of the damage occurring.

 The bylaw also would make official the best practice promoted by Bear Aware of only allowing residents to put their garbage out for collection on the proper day between 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM. 

Much of the bylaw is, of course, aimed at re-enforcing common bear-country practices such as collecting fallen fruit from trees on properties and ensuring that bird feeders are suspended from a cable high enough to be inaccessible to wildlife.

There are several exemptions to the potential bylaw, one of which excludes The City of Rossland only for the purposes of the commercial core waste disposal containers located on Columbia Avenue and Washington Street. The relatively new waste disposal containers downtown were a regular target for bears over last summer’s record year for bear destruction. Several steps have been taken since then, however, as Wieder worked with the city on some simple, cost effective solutions to make the containers more bear proof, such as zap-strapping the containers shut. 

The requirements to store waste in wildlife proof bins is also exempted for weddings, sports tournaments, outdoor conventions, Canada Day and other temporary special events if refuse containers required for the special event are emptied into a wildlife proof container by midnight each day.

Fines for breach of the bylaw range from $50/offence up to $200/offence; however, Wieder hopes that a similar approach to that taken in Trail (whereby the first offence generates a visit from the Bear Aware coordinator to educate and work with the offender to better wildlife-proof their problem area) will be followed in the Golden City.

In discussion, councillors made just one change. They decided to remove compost from the list of attractants as it was noted that properly-done compost is not a wildlife attractant.

In a move to hustle the bylaw along as bear season has officially begun and our fine fury friends are now waking up hungry and looking for food, Councilor Kathy Moore--after 1st reading of the bylaw was passed--made a motion to also pass 2nd and 3rd reading of the motion.

The bylaw will now come back before council in two weeks time to be voted on for adoption. Should it go through, Rossland will have taken one big step towards gaining Bear Smart certification.

“Pay attention to the bylaw,” added Wieder. “If it does get adopted than it will be a great tool for Bear Aware and the City to get out there and really encourage people to be more cognizant of their garbage and the other attractants like bird feeders, pet food and those other things people don’t always think about as attractants and will hopefully help educate people and make them be a little bit more careful with their waste.”