Sat 27 Dec 2008
Whistler Bear Tracks 2008 Summary
Posted by Barb under BC Info , Call to Action , NewsView or Post Comments
Too much garbage, too many dead bears overshadow progress
Jeff Gailus, The Question, December 24, 2008
Whistler – The year 2008 will be remembered as the year of the big bear. When researchers checked their traps in the Alta Vista subdivision, they found the largest black bear ever recorded in the Whistler area, a 485-pound male that Conservation Officer Chris Doyle called a “belly dragger” because of its immense girth. We won’t know where he went until he’s spotted on a hillside eating clover. His neck was so big the research team couldn’t find a radio collar big enough to fit, so he had to be content with attaching a tag to the bear’s oversized ear.
These are the kinds of stories that remind us how good it feels to live in the world of bears. Whistler is blessed to share the valley bottom and mountainsides with approximately 100 members of the species Ursus americanus, the American black bear, and for the most part this coexistence is a peaceable one. But 2008 was a bloody year for Whistler’s black bears, and an indication that there is still much work to be done to make Whistler safe for both its ursine and human residents. Human-caused bear mortalities were up 43 per cent over last year. It all began when Murray was shot in late May for breaking into a home, a precedent that started a record year for unwelcome house calls by our curious, four-legged neighbours. The bear season ended in late November when Oval, a two-year-old male, was trapped and shot after entering a house, putting home entries up 25 per cent. Human injuries, too, set a new record, jumping from one in 2006, the first ever, to four in 2008.
“We lost a lot of well-known and treasured bears this year: Murray, Rocky, Fitz, Phillip, Oval, and many others that we didn’t know so well,” says Sylvia Dolson, Get Bear Smart Society executive director. “Little Jasmine, Jeanie’s daughter, was translocated and we don’t know her fate. It’s all very sad and, worst of all, needless.”
Despite years of hard work and many significant improvements, an unsustainable 15 bears were killed (and another two relocated) because of ongoing negative interactions with humans. Eleven bears were destroyed for entering homes and other buildings, and a 12th was shot after nipping an Australian tourist in Whistler Village. Two bears were killed in motor vehicle collisions, and one was poached right out of the school yard (that cub’s killer was later fined $3,000 and prohibited from hunting or possessing firearms for three years).
“These trends are extremely distressing,” Dolson says. “The consequences for bears are deadly, and human safety risk is increasing at an alarming rate because more people are interacting with bears than ever before.
“Losing twice as many bears as is deemed sustainable by the British Columbia Ministry of Environment is simply unacceptable. We need to do something about this before it’s too late.”
Like every year, there were some significant incremental improvements to Whistler’s Bear Smart efforts. A detailed waste audit resulted in improved bear-proofing of condominium garbage sheds, and ongoing efforts by the Get Bear Smart Society, Bear Aware and the Whistler Bear Project continues to increase awareness. Perhaps the best news was the completion of the Conflict Management Plan and the new attractant management bylaw, which will be finalized and in place before the bears emerge from their dens in the spring.
But if Whistler is ever going to become an official Bear Smart community — and, more importantly, eliminate bear-caused human injury and reduce human-caused mortality to sustainable levels — the community needs to come together and find a way to better manage bear attractants around homes and businesses. While residents often like to point the finger at visitors and so-called “transients,” it is locals who are responsible for most of the more serious bear-human conflicts.
“Unfortunately, the locals are habituated to the bears,” says Drew Milne, bear response officer with the Conservation Officer Service. “Everyone says they’re Bear Smart, but they’re not. They don’t secure their homes and they don’t call when bears are around.
“The best thing they can do is to keep doors and windows secured, secure garbage and other attractants, and call in when bears are around so we can identify which ones are in conflict.” This allows Milne and the Bear Aversion Research Team (BART) to more effectively teach bears to stay out of developed areas.
Relocating bears is a Band-Aid solution that doesn’t really doesn’t solve the problem, says Lori Homstol, a bear researcher with BART. “And aversive conditioning works under some conditions, but it’s certainly not a silver bullet, especially when attractants are still so readily available to bears.”
Whistler is not the only community to struggle with the problem of living in close proximity to bears, though the high density of black bears here and the sprawling layout of the community make it more challenging. As Dr. Stephen Herrero pointed out in The Whistler Question earlier this year, Yosemite had serious problems with habituated black bears in the 1980s and ’90s, as did Canmore and Banff.
But all of these resort communities —Yosemite, Canmore, Banff — solved their bear problems by making garbage and other attractants off-limits to bears. If Whistler wants to keep its streets safe for both people and bears, it has little choice but to implement a solid waste management system that keeps garbage out of the mouths of bears and in the bear-proof bins where it belongs.
As I wrote earlier this year, there is no other option. Humans are clearly here to stay, and getting rid of the bears would require an all-out war involving poison and pump-action shotguns that the public would simply not support.
No one wants to get rid of the bears, anyway. They are an important part of the economic and social fabric of the community, one that deserves the investment of time and money that is required to implement a truly bear-proof waste management system. Let’s put our heads together and make it happen, so we can call ourselves a Bear Smart community by the time the world arrives on Whistler’s doorstep for the 2010 Olympics.
Jeff Gailus is an award-winning writer, member of the Get Bear Smart Society, and frequent visitor of Whistler’s beautiful black bears.
http://www.whistlerquestion.com/article/20081224/WHISTLER14/312249998/1028/2008-year-of-the-big-bear
Sylvia Dolson
Executive Director,
Get Bear Smart Society
P.O. Box 502
Whistler, BC V0N 1B0
Phone: 604-905-4209
“Coexisting with Bears”
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