Five bears destroyed by conservation officers in Penticton
Credit to Author: Cayley Dobie| Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 19:40:14 +0000
PENTICTON — As Naramata residents gathered Thursday to celebrate their success at keeping bruins at bay, five bears were destroyed by conservation officers in Penticton.
Heidi McHale said bears had been prowling her Wiltse neighbourhood for several days and feasting on residents’ garbage.
“Basically, 80 per cent of people leave their garbage out all week, either by their house or they put it out curbside the night before,” said McHale. “There is no need to keep it outside. I am so upset, because this was so preventable. It didn’t have to happen.”
One of the conservation officers involved agrees.
“We’ve been trying to get the community to clean up garbage and not leave garbage out … but unfortunately these bears just took up residence in this greenbelt area next to the elementary school and it created an unsafe situation for the … public and the students,” said Sgt. James Zucchelli.
“We were put into a position where public safety had to outweigh the bears.”
Three of the five bears roaming a Penticton neighbourhood this week are pictured here in a backyard. All five bears were shot and killed by conservation officers Thursday morning after the bears became habituated to garbage.
Zucchelli said his office had been receiving complaints for the past four days about the increasingly brazen bears going on people’s decks, destroying a hot-tub cover and on Wednesday night charging a 20-year-old man.
The five-bear group was “highly unusual,” he added, because it was made up of three adult males and two sub-adult females, who weren’t offspring of the males.
“This was like a group of adults and teenagers that were basically operating together,” said Zucchelli.
“The only thing we can surmise is that there was so much attractants around there that they were just able to be around each other and go door-to-door and get what they wanted.”
The bears, which were trying to build fat stores before hibernating for winter, weren’t suitable candidates for relocation, explained Zucchelli, because they had become so habituated to food and humans.
He encouraged people to visit www.wildsafebc.com to learn about managing bear attractants, and to report sightings by calling 1-877-952-7277.
As the animals were making their final rounds in Penticton, people in Naramata gathered at their local school to celebrate the community’s renewed Bear Smart status.
The honour, which has been bestowed upon just eight B.C. communities, recognizes efforts to reduce or eliminate bear attractants, such as using bear-proof garbage cans.
Program co-ordinator Zoe Kirk from the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen said the result has been just two bears – both of them sick – euthanized in Naramata in the past five years.
“Our calls (about nuisance bears) dropped from almost 200 … to 12, 10, eight a year,” she said.
Naramata received its first five-year Bear Smart certification in 2014 and had to pass an audit to renew.
Bear Smart is funded by the B.C. government and run in partnership with local governments.