Email
Print
Letter to Editor
ShareGrizzly attacking livestock killed near Quick
Published: October 08, 2008 8:00 AMUpdated: October 09, 2008 3:46 PM
A grizzly bear killing livestock in the Quick area was put down by conservation officers late last month.
The shooting is the 46th of the year by conservation officers in their territory which extends to just south of Houston to the Yukon border.
“We do try to rehabilitate grizzly bears, but this one wasn’t a candidate,” said conservation officer Kevin Nixon.
When deciding whether to put a bear down, the guidelines are set to measure the location, the bear was found, the habituation of the bear to garbage food or humans.
“We also have to measure the level of aggression,” Nixon said. “Once a bear develops a taste for livestock, they often come back and that hurts our credibility with the Cattlemens’ Association.”
Nixon said that while the number of bears put down this year is high, it’s not as much as other years.
Two years ago, the four-man team had to put down 60 or more bears.
“It mostly has to do with naturally-available food sources,” Nixon said. “Some years the berry crop is very good, this year the saskatoons were not so bad and there was an exceptional huckleberry crop. The black bears in the area are very healthy.
Once the fall season hits, bears — whose only thought is to fill up their bellies for hibernation — get more and more brazen.
“First, a bear is a block in from the green belt, then two blocks, the next thing you know it is on Main Street,” Nixon said. “They eat 18 hours a day right now, they don’t think about anything else.”
Nixon said people should be careful to only put garbage out on garbage day. Apple trees should also be picked.
“I drove around town today [Thursday] and I must have seen hundreds of apple trees brimming with apples,” Nixon said. “In Smithers alone we had six calls this morning about bear sightings.”
Because conservation officers receive many calls each day, officers must prioritize those calls where people are in imminent danger, but Nixon said the RCMP is always there to help.
When a bear walked into a Subway [restaurant] in Kitimat last month, RCMP secured the scene until a conservation officer could arrive.
“The RCMP’s first goal is to protect human life and so is the C.O.’s,” Nixon said.
