Garbage 18 - Bears 0
By Andrew Zwicker
So far this year, 18 bears have been destroyed in the in the Castlegar Conservation District (which extends from the U.S. border north to Halcyon Hot Springs and west from the Salmo-Creston Pass to the Paulson Summit). In Rossland, there has been one, and possibly two, bears destroyed. As reported in the Telegraph last week, there was a bear at the top of Spokane street which was shot but not killed by the RCMP. The conservation officer was called in to track and locate the bear to put it down.
“I spent a lot of time trying to catch that bear and haven't been able to,” explained local conservation officer Peter Busink. “That being said, last Friday I spent about three-and-a -half hours in town responding to sightings of that bear and every time I caught up with him, he was already gone back into the green space. I don't think we've had a report of that injured bear in the last week, though, so hopefully it has moved on.”
This past Monday another bear, this time in lower Rossland near the Dunn Crescent area, was trapped and euthanized. The animal had been showing aggressive behavior.
Following last week's shooting, questions have arisen around town as to the procedures for dealing with “problem” bears. While in some areas, hazing techniques and relocating bears have been attempted, the general consensus has been that those tactics do not work effectively.
“A good example is the scruffy little brown bear that has been hanging around Rossland for the last month or so,” explained Busink. “I tried hazing him with bean bags and rubber bullets, but it just doesn't work. We don't have the resources to do relocation here and there was a study done over a number of years in Whistler that showed that hazing and relocating just doesn't work with a habituated bear and it's a huge cost on our resources to relocate a bear just to have them come back into town.”
The real solution to reducing or eliminating bears coming into urban areas and causing problems lies, not in conservation techniques, but rather in the public eliminating and controlling their attractants. Education and proper action, as folks living in bear country should know, are the first steps in reducing/eliminating the need to destroy bears.
“Our procedure is to deal with people first,” added Busink. “The only reason bears are in town is that people have attractants that they are not securing or managing properly. Our first step is to work with people and educate them that they are the ones who are actually killing the bears. We just have to do the dirty work.”
If you see a bear in town, conservation urges you to call the RAPP line at 1-877-952-7277. They also stress that calling in a sighting does not mean they will be coming to destroy the bear. Rather, every call helps them to gather historical information on bears around town, so they can educate area residents and avoid having to destroy the bears.
