One more bear was killed in Revelstoke last week, following an “attractant audit” conducted by the Conservation Officer Service.
“We had a dedicated attractant audited,” said CO Dan Bartol. “We had four officers spend two days here, basically blanket the town and visit all the residential communities and businesses to get a sense of what attractants are still available to bears and what’s keeping them or bringing them to town.”
The audit was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday. The COs went door-to-door, talking to residents about garbage storage, fruit tree maintenance and other bear attractants. They issued about 15 dangerous wildlife protection orders calling on people to either secure their garbage or clean up their fruit trees. At one house, a home owner was ordered to clean up fruit on the ground; when the COs returned, the fruit tree was cut down, said Bartol.
“I can see that some residents are taking this quite seriously, but obviously some residents are not,” said Bartol. “From the business community I noticed a lot of metal-lid dumpsters and most of them had locks or some sort of locking mechanism like a carabiner, which is clearly a lot better than it was.”
Unfortunately, one bear was euthanized near Downie Timber on Saturday. Bartol said he received reports of the bear breaking into people’s homes to get access to garbage, and that it had a stand-off with a St. Bernard dog.
“There were piles of garbage being dragged around from some neighbours,” he said. “You can tell the bears have been feasting on garbage.”
Another bear in the area was trapped and released after it was deemed not food-conditioned.
The death brings the total of bears killed in Revelstoke to 11 this summer, including one in July and nine in one three-day period in August.