In-town bear sightings have been reported in Clinton, Cache Creek, Spences Bridge, and Logan Lake recently, a reminder that it’s the time of year when hungry bruins are fattening up for winter hibernation and that humans need to do their part to keep them safe.
Bears need to consume approximately 20,000 calories a day in preparation for their long winter’s nap. Heat, drought, and wildfires can affect their traditional wilderness feeding grounds, causing them to make an earlier than usual appearance in urban environments, where they can often find a tempting smorgasbord of fruit, garbage, backyard livestock, pet and chicken feed, compost, and birdseed.
Driven by an insatiable hunger at this time of year, the bears — which have a keen sense of smell — are attracted by the rich aromas coming from the many food sources humans unwittingly leave around for them. Wildlife is naturally wary of humans, but if they receive the reward, they will consider coming back again, and it’s not always true that they’re more frightened of us than we are of them. Bears have been known to try to enter homes in pursuit of a hot scent; another reason to keep them out of communities.
Berry-producing plants, nuts, and fish are a natural and important part of a bear’s pre-hibernation diet, but if these are not readily available bears will go in search of food in urban areas. The rich rewards of some of those food sources (one kilo of birdseed contains about 8,000 calories) means that bears can easily become habituated to towns. If they receive a reward for raiding someone’s fruit trees or garbage cans, chances are they will come back again, and habituated bears are much more difficult to relocate successfully: once they have learned a behaviour, they can’t unlearn it.
There are simple ways to manage the attractants around your house, to discourage bears from dropping by for a snack. One of the easiest is keeping your garbage inside, or secured in a bear-proof enclosure, since garbage is the number one attractant cited in reports of bear sightings in urban environments. Bears are more active at night when people are asleep, so that is when they come into communities, because the risks are lower for them. For this reason, do not put your garbage out the night before collection day.
Manage any fruit trees in your yard by picking fruit as soon as it ripens, and not letting windfalls accumulate. If you don’t want the fruit, see if it can be used by a local food bank, or a community lunch program like Soup’s On in Ashcroft. Ask friends or neighbours to help you pick fruit, or let people know if they can come by and help themselves. If you don’t want the fruit at all, wash the blossoms off in the spring so the fruit doesn’t set, or replace your fruit tree(s) with a non-fruit-bearing variety.
Don’t put out bird feeders when bears are active. There is still plenty of natural food available for birds, which don’t need bird seed or suet until after bears have gone into hibernation (usually by November). If you have a backyard composter, keep it working properly with lots of brown materials and a regular schedule of turning.
There is more information about handling attractants at www.wildsafebc.com. The website also has safety tips and videos, including a guide to carrying and using bear spray when walking in bear country. Bear spray has been proven effective against black bears and grizzly bears, as well as cougars.
Remember, if a bear becomes habituated to a food source within a community, it is the animal that will pay the price, so make sure you’re not providing a buffet for hungry bruins.
