Conservation officers and bear advocates are urging North Shore residents to be extra vigilant as bear conflicts are ramping up at a critical time.
Bears are looking to get calories from any source they can as hibernation season nears.
Officers deployed a trap in Blueridge last week in hopes of catching a bear that had some troubling run-ins with humans after becoming habituated to scraps courtesy of area residents.
“It was bold enough that it was comfortable walking up to a small kiddie pool with children in it,” said Shawn McNaughton, conservation officer. “When it’s feeding primarily on garbage and food waste in an urban setting like that and it’s kind of lost all care for when people are present, and it’s causing property damage regularly, it’s a problem bear and it’s the sort of situation that has to be dealt with. We don’t like to leave those things until someone ends up getting charged or attacked.”
The bear is tagged, indicating it has been relocated once already, or possibly it was raised at the Critter Care wildlife rescue. In either case, it is likely the bear will be destroyed when it’s caught, McNaughton said.
The trap has since been removed but McNaughton said the best thing residents can do for the bear is to make sure it has nothing to feed on, including bird seed, garbage, compost or fruit trees.
“Our main goal is to get that entire community to be a little bit better about controlling their attractants,” he said.
West Vancouver conservation officer Simon Gravel has a similar message for residents in Caulfeild, where a mother and one or possibly two cubs have been traipsing between Lighthouse Park and the area above Highway 1.
“We’re repeating this message again and again and again,” Gravel said. “The fate of these bears is really in the hands of the residents.”
Having dogs off-leash can also very quickly escalate into a problem encounter, Gravel added.
There is also a tagged mother bear and a cub lumbering around Blueridge, and while conservation officers are not actively seeking them out, they too are showing troubling signs of habituation, McNaughton said.
Christine Miller, education co-ordinator with the North Shore Black Bear Society, is hoping officers spare the cub and take it to Critter Care. Miller said she was aware of one instance in which the sow brought the cub onto someone’s deck; however, she wrote to the conservation officer service to let them know “there were a lot of upset residents and a lot people report her behaviour is totally non-threatening.”
McNaughton said they would have to make a decision only after catching the bears.
“We’d have to evaluate at the time, but if the mother bear is a conflict bear, then more often than not, the (cub) won’t qualify for Critter Care,” he said.
In the meantime, Miller is advising kids who walk to school in those neighbourhoods to avoid trails.
“It’s better to stick to the streets. It’s better walk in small groups, always making noise so there are no surprise encounters,” she said.
Miller said a Grade 8 student in Blueridge just had one such pulse-raising run-in on Monday morning.
“He ran face to face with that mother,” she said.
It’s been a busy year for bears on the North Shore, and more surprisingly, cubs, Miller said. The 2015 drought was bad for bears’ foraging and sows that don’t feed well in the summer typically absorb any fertilized embryos they may be carrying.
The Blueridge mother appears somewhat frail, Miller added.
“She doesn’t look as well rounded as you would hope her to be. Any pictures I’ve seen of them feeding, off a bird feeder, for example, she’s always letting the cub eat first,” she said. “Good old moms, making the great sacrifice.”
