| |
All Prevention Articles
The first thing to know about bears is they are unpredictable. There is no sure way to survive a bear attack, whether it's a grizzly or a black bear, although the lighter-coloured, humped grizzly is bigger and generally more aggressive.
The safest option, of course, is avoiding an attack altogether. Making noise when you're hiking in the wilderness is a good start, whether you talk loudly, clap your hands or call out, giving a bear you haven't yet seen a chance to retreat
Let's talk trash. Specifically, yours. What do you do with it? How do you get rid of it? Do you smuggle it on the bus to get it to the nearest dumpster you can find?
Maybe you work hard every day, sorting, cleaning and composting everything that can be diverted from the landfill (good job!). Do you stash it in your garage until it emits perfume de bear-come-'n'-get-me? Leave it sitting outside your recently built new-and-improved bear-proof garbage shed when you forget your key? At the bus stop partially stuffed into the already overflowing bin, essentially baiting a bear into your 'hood?
It has been a busy week or so for black bear activity and other wildlife in Whistler, with conservation officers making the decision to kill the first bear of the season because it entered a home in Alta Vista. Other recent bear-human encounters included two other home invasions, a bear raiding golf bags at a local course and a cub hit and killed by a vehicle on Highway 99.
A cougar sighting was also reported in Spring Creek last Wednesday (June 22).
It was a large, adult male black bear that conservation officers trapped and shot last Wednesday after it entered an Alta Vista home while two people were inside. The previous day (June 21), the bear went “deep into the house and into the kitchen” where it found food, said Chris Doyle, conservation officer.
BOZEMAN, Mont. - Gallatin National Forest managers, on recommendations of grizzly bear experts, have banned tent camping at three campgrounds near Yellowstone National Park, including one where a Michigan man was mauled to death last July.
The requirement for hard-sided recreational vehicles only is in effect for the Soda Butte, Colter and Chief Joseph campgrounds just east of Cooke City because bears frequent those areas, forest officials said Wednesday.
Following the mauling death of Kevin Kammer, 48, of Grand Rapids, Mich., and an attack on two others at the Soda Butte campground last July 28, forest supervisors for the six national forests in the Yellowstone region asked grizzly bear experts to recommend how to manage campgrounds in the area.
PORT ORCHARD - Trotting out of a greenbelt off Mile Hill Dive, Mishka's tongue hung out of his mouth. Panting to cool off, the dog's thick black fur was matted with sweat.
The 8-year-old dog and his handler, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officer Bruce Richards, were in pursuit of a young black bear seen hanging around three South Kitsap schools.
Driving home last evening from Whistler to Squamish eight to ten cars were stopped on both sides of the road, where the cement barriers were present, making the shoulder much smaller than normal.
I thought there was an accident in progress making me slam on my breaks coming around a downhill corner.
To my amazement it turned out not to be an accident but a lone bear in the ditch. This is a HUGE hazard for other drivers on this highway people!
It's a graphic reminder about the importance of securing garbage cans or coolers full of food -- to keep bears from breaking in. The black bears at the BC Wildlife park in Kamloops got a special snack today - one that bear aware hopes will send a powerful message. Wildlife park officials demonstrated just how easy it is for a persistent bruin to crack open most garbage containers. The park is hoping to be designated an official "test site" for bear-resistant cans
Jessy Coltrane, the Anchorage-area wildlife biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, pulled her big white pickup onto Tudor Road and headed for one of the city's worst bear-problem neighborhoods: Muldoon.
The cab of her truck was packed with gun cases and rain gear. The bed held a dog kennel to haul moose calves and one very large net.
Each summer has a similar, chaotic tempo, she said. The bear calls begin in May. Then the moose start giving birth, and that goes on all of June while the bear calls keep ramping up. Mostly it's black bears scaring up trouble in neighborhoods. Occasionally, there's more serious trouble with a brown bear. The wildlife crescendo comes at the end of July and then things drop off once berry season starts and bears get more interested in blueberries than old pizza boxes, she said.
The death this week of a mother grizzly on the train tracks near Lake Louise — leaving two cubs orphaned — has renewed calls for Canadian Pacific and Parks Canada to do something about the problem of bear deaths.
A number of initiatives have been in place for years, including vegetation management along the right-of-way and the vacuuming up of grain fallen from passing railcars. As well, crews report bear sightings to the rail traffic controller, and other crews are thus alerted to the bear’s presence. It’s heartening, however, to learn that new initiatives will be unveiled in a joint announcement in the next few months by CP and Parks Canada, and that future efforts arising from CP’s five-year, $1-million research program will begin to focus on the science around bear behaviour.
Wildlife officials are concerned that black bears coming out of hibernation are showing up in alarming numbers along the Sea to Sky Highway near Whistler, B.C.
Part of the problem is clover planted on the roadside when the highway was expanded before the 2010 Olympics. Bear experts say the animals love clover and will brave fast-moving traffic to get it.
A growing unease about the increase in bears being killed and injured on the Sea to Sky Highway, as well as traffic safety concerns relating to copious "bear jams," has prompted further investigation by the Get Bear Smart Society, along with the many members of the Whistler Black Bear Working Group.
While both organizations have been integral to reducing human-bear conflict in and around Whistler for many years, the main focus of the group has been public education with respect to securing attractants and bear proofing the waste management system. This new phenomena is cause for significant concern among the stakeholders.
I can picture the Herald online reader comments. "Goodness gracious! Enough with bears, already!"
Indeed, bears have been prominent in the local media of late: reports marking the start of the bear season, a failed legislative attempt at extending the bear hunting season, the $1.95 million judgment awarded to the family of an 11-year old boy killed by a bear in 2007 in Utah and a cub recently killed by a vehicle near Chapman Hill.
A man with suitcases full of baby leopards, panthers, a bear and monkeys has been arrested at Bangkok airport.
Authorities stopped the first-class passenger as he waited to check in for his flight to Dubai.
Anti-trafficking officers had been monitoring him since he purchased the rare and endangered animals on the black market.
Revelstoke Bear Aware Community Coordinator Janette Vickers has been working with Ron Larsen and Jeff Bolingbroke at Parks Canada to create a Google Earth Map to view bear sightings on the Revelstoke Bear Aware website, www.revelstokebearaware.org. The Google Earth Map is an interactive tool for residents to view bear sightings and associated bear attractants in our community. Currently, the map includes reported bear sightings for 2009, 2010 and our first bear sighting of 2011 on April 23rd.
Apr 19, 2011 — Web Page: Got Garbage?
No vehicle to get to the compactor site? Find out how to get rid of your garbage.
As grizzly bears venture out of their dens in Western and Northern Canada, the world will appear to them much as it did the spring before: snow on the ground, stomachs empty, the promise of winterkilled meat to scavenge and the perils of living cheek-by-jowl with an ever-expanding human footprint of growing rural towns, mines, pipelines and roads.
They will not know that they are once again under a national microscope that will determine the fate of them and their progeny.
Despite what seems like the renewal of winter this week, Whistler residents are being asked to prepare for the awakening of the local black bear population.
The emergence from hibernation comes at the same time the municipality has received funding to hire a Bear Aware community coordinator for Whistler. This is the fifth year that the B.C. Conservation Foundation has subsidized a community coordinator position in Whistler.
They’re awake and crawling out of their dens looking for food, any food: the tender green shoots of plants reaching for the warm spring sun as well as bugs, bark and carcasses of animals that didn’t make it through the winter.
And garbage.
For some black bears, especially those living in green spaces and forests around the Tri-Cities, humans’ garbage is as good as anything because they aren’t picky eaters. They’ll eat the plastic wrap off a stale chocolate bar.
In this paper the authors tested the ability to use stable isotope analysis (by plucking hair from captured bears) to quantify garbage in bear diet. They contrasted hairs taken from spring harvested bears and bear captures in Missoula, Montana in 2009. Results: 1. Stable isotopes seem promising for actually identifying garbage in diet, but there are still some issues to be worked out; 2. Garbage was not a significant food source for bears around Missoula in 2008.
Prince George, B.C. - The City of Prince George has three steps to complete before it can be certified as a "Bear Smart" community.
Bears are not uncommon sites in Prince George, in fact, last year, Conservation Officers received 1925 calls about bears in the community and attended 310. Of that number, 86 black bears and one grizzly were destroyed, and one black bear was relocated.
|
|
|
