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Trying to keep bears alive and people safe Straps suggested for garbage containers TED CLARKE Citizen staff
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Every year the BC Conservation Officer Service (BCCOS) kills hundreds of bears in a bid to protect public safety.
And every year, wildlife advocates say the system fails to protect animals’ lives adequately. “We need to get to the bottom of why there are so many dead bears, year after year after year,” said Lesley Fox,
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STEFAN LABBÉ
Glacier Media
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Prince George highest in B.C. for bear deaths by conservation officers
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executive director of The Fur-Bearers. Last week, her organization published a database detailing bear killings in every community across the province from 2015 to 2021.
Bears can’t seem to resist a free meal. Especially the kind people leave out for them in their garbage containers. Those bruins lurking in the forests that surround many Prince George neighbourhoods have a keen sense of smell and they will come around at night or early in the morning when people drag their garbage to the curb to be collected by the city trucks. Unfortunately, that creates bad habits and bears get used to knocking over those plastic bins to get at the goodies inside. That brings them into the neighbourhood, where they go after bird feeders and fruit trees, rather than sticking to the woods to feed on their natural diet of berries and cowslips, and that increases the likelihood of a close encounter with humans or their pets. In some cases, bears get too habituated to city neighbourhoods and have to be euthanized by B.C. Conservation officers. That was the fate that led to the deaths of 36 bears in Prince George in 2021, among 3,779 bears shot by conservation officers in a seven-year period from 2015-2021.