Conservation officers in Nelson say they had to shoot a black bear hanging around a city school, Monday, just blocks from a busy tourist area.
Jason Hawkes of the B.C. Conservation Service says they’d been receiving calls about a problem bear in the city’s Rosemont area for a few weeks. Monday morning, the bear was spotted at Central School, in the city’s downtown.
“Our fear was the bear would move down the hill and be in the middle of ‘Tourist Central,’” says Hawkes.
Conservation officers discussed the situation with police on the scene.
“We decided that euthanization was the best, safest route for dealing with this animal.
“It’s really unfortunate the bear had to be destroyed, especially when the reason is because of human attractants like garbage and fruit trees."
Hawkes says his office has been receiving a high volume of calls from the West Kootenays about problem bears in the last few weeks, as the animals’ natural food sources dwindle and hibernation approaches.
“The battle now is to encourage people to pick the fruit from their trees and secure their garbage,” he says. “If people did that, most of these conflicts would go away.”
It’s been a hard week for conservation officers in the southeast of the province. In Revelstoke, conservation officers had to shoot nine bears in three days. The bears were all described as problem bears that had become accustomed to foraging for garbage. One came within a few metres of a toddler in a garage.
The shootings in Revelstoke prompted a demonstration by a few dozen residents on Monday, upset about the incident. They called on fellow residents to do more not to attract bears, and for officials to increase enforcement of garbage storage rules to deter bears.