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All Politics Articles
The authors believe that communication within and among agency personnel in the United States and Canada about the successes and failures of their human-bear (Ursidae) management programs will increase the effectiveness of these programs and of bear research. To communicate more effectively, they suggest agencies clearly define terms and concepts used in human-bear management and use them in a consistent manner. They constructed a human-bear management lexicon of terms and concepts using a modified Delphi method to provide a resource that facilitates more effective communication among human-bear management agencies.
A group that includes Nelson’s conservation officer, Bear Aware coordinator and the chief of police is calling on the city to take a tougher stand on the way residents deal with their garbage, fruit trees and compost.
The Human-Bear Conflict Solutions Committee made its case to city council Monday, asking for a “dawn to dusk” clause to be added to the city’s current waste disposal bylaws and a new wildlife attractant bylaw based on one already in place in the Village of Kaslo.
Members of the Ktunaxa Nation visited the British Columbia legislature to make a declaration creating a refuge area in the Jumbo creek valley that would preclude a controversial proposal for a ski resort.
“The Qat'muk is the home of the Grizzly Bear Spirit and is the unique and proper place to celebrate and honour this spirit,” said the declaration Ktunaxa Nation Council Chair Kathryn Teneese delivered Nov. 15. “To fully protect the most sacred core of the Qat'muk area, a refuge area consisting of the upper part of the Jumbo valley is hereby established.”
As the state's first bear hunting season in five years is scheduled to begin in just a few weeks, the fight between the West Milford-based Bear Education and Resource (BEAR) Group and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) continues on in state Superior Court.
The BEAR Group, a bear activist organization staunchly opposed to a hunt, waged a lawsuit against the DEP's Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) and the state's Fish and Game Council (FGC) back in March, coming on the heels of the council's decision to put forth a black bear management policy that would include a bear hunt.
Taseko Mines Ltd. hopes it will be able to submit a new Prosperity mine proposal to the federal government.
The government had announced Tuesday, Nov. 2 that it won’t grant authorizations to the gold-copper mine project “as proposed.”
Brian Battison, vice president of corporate affairs for Taseko, says the government has indicated it would consider a new proposal from Taseko.
Re: Sylvia Dolson's letter to the editor (Get Bear Smart, Pique Oct. 14)
I fully appreciate Dolson's concern for our local bears and support her goals of preventing their habituation to human activity and their deaths as a result. However, I am concerned that some of the solutions proposed at various public meetings, namely neighbourhood waste collection bins, come at the price of other sustainability goals.
Waste collection in the neighbourhoods will increase our municipal costs, and at what benefit? One estimate for a subsidized trial was $80,000 for one neighbourhood and it may not solve our bear attractant issues.
The B.C. Ministry of Environment has suggested the Village of Pemberton work toward becoming a Bear Smart community as per a provincial conservation program, Pemberton council revealed at its Tuesday (Nov. 2) meeting.
A report released Tuesday looking at ways the community can reduce human-bear conflicts stated the ministry's large carnivore specialist, Tony Hamilton, made the recommendation to the Village, which would need to meet a set of criteria to officially become a Bear Smart community.
Two Australian tourists mauled by a grizzly bear near Lake Louise, Alta., will not be compensated by Parks Canada.
The two were attacked by a grizzly while camping in the park in 1995. Years later, they claimed Parks Canada personnel neglected to warn campers properly about the dangers of a bear in the area.
The lawsuit was heard in Calgary court in September, where Owen Hereford and Andrew Brodie were seeking damages of $75,000 each.
The story of a bear cub being killed on Highway 3 by a speeding driver at night prompted councillors to call for a reduction in the speed limit.
Deborah and Chris Johnson of Fernie wrote to the City of Fernie after they saw a black bear cub struck and killed by a speeding driver near Vanlerberg Road in West Fernie.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge ordered the Obama administration on Wednesday to review whether polar bears, at risk because of global warming, are endangered under U.S. law.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan wants the Interior Department to clarify a decision by the administration of former President George W. Bush that polar bears were merely threatened rather than in imminent danger of extinction.
Sullivan's request, made at a hearing Wednesday in federal court, keeps in place the 2008 declaration by the Bush administration.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida is considering allowing bear hunting in the state.
Bear hunting has been banned in Florida since 1994, but now the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is putting together a management plan that would allow hunting if the black bear population gets out of control.
The black bear population has grown a lot since the 1970s when the state named the animals a threatened species. There are an estimated 3,000 in Florida.
Alaska wildlife managers say they need help: A growing number of black bears are roaming the state, chowing down on too many caribou and moose and leaving too few for humans to eat.
So the state is poised for the first time to legalize the trapping of black bears.
Critics call the plan cruel: Bears are lured with buckets of raw meat and their paws are snared when they reach inside. Sometimes, bears end up chewing off a foot to get free.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A move by the state Department of Fish and Game to legalize the snaring and trapping of bears for the first time since statehood has a conservation group and an agency watchdog accusing Alaska's game board and other state officials of trying to silence the public on important wildlife management issues.
But the head of Alaska's largest sportsmen's group said Friday the agency's proposal to allow bear trapping is an attempt to give the public more hunting opportunities while building on the state's aerial predator control program in which wolves and bears are killed to boost moose and caribou numbers.
In a season that has seen a weak natural berry crop force bears into urban areas around the Sea to Sky region, ursine issues in Pemberton have been attracting attention and comments from concerned community members and advocates.
Dawn Johnson, Pemberton area resident and program co-ordinator for the Whistler based Get Bear Smart Society, has written twice to the Village of Pemberton council in recent months about bear-related issues. She said she’s felt spurred to comment by her increased awareness of a seeming lack of progress in regards to securing the area’s bear attractants.
Years of efforts trying to quell bear-human conflicts paid off this weekend as Squamish joined Kamloops as the second community in the province to be designated a Bear Smart Community.
The long-awaited announcement was made during a celebration hosted by the province's Bear Aware education program representatives at the Adventure Centre Saturday (Sept. 25) with representatives from the municipality, the Public Library, the RCMP, the Boy Scouts, the Conservation Officer Service, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Carney's Waste Systems.
An “inadequate patchwork of laws and policies” are putting an estimated 1,900 species of B.C. wildlife at risk of “extinction or extirpation,” environmental groups claim in a new study.
The study released Tuesday by the David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice and Conservation Northwest argues that despite being home to a vast array of wildlife, B.C. has very few species at risk protected under the law.
A Kermode bear found in downtown Kitimat has not been destroyed but relocated due to the sole fact that it is a spirit bear.
Conservation officers picked up the kermode on Tweedsmuir Ave. this Monday, September 13 after receiving calls of a kermode bear in the downtown area of Kitimat.
There is a little bear outside my door as I write this. He is small for his age and probably won't survive the winter (probably an orphan).
The bears, as bears do, sometimes kill my chickens, sometimes destroy my fruit trees, sometimes get to my grape vines before I can. I don't blame them. Bears will be bears.
After killing six bears — two sows and four cubs — after the young entered homes in Colorado Springs this week, the Colorado Division of Wildlife found itself cast as incompetent managers at best, cold-hearted killers at worst.
“Poor little cubs. They were only looking for food. Why MUST they be euthanized? It just doesn’t seem right. We are in their territory, after all,” a Gazette reader commented online.
Another was accusing. “Murderers,” the reader wrote.
BUTTE (AP) — A security guard at the ultra-exclusive Yellowstone Club has paid $1,735 in restitution and fines for illegally killing a black bear while trying to haze the animal away from a paintball course.
Shane Barstad paid $1,000 in restitution and a $735 fine in Justice Court in Madison County this week, the Montana Standard reported.
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