Bears 

The reason there tends to be so many bears in residential areas is due to food-conditioning. Bears are creatures of habit and once they realize there are easy sources of food that are readily available to them, they will continue to come back. If you manage the bear attractants around your house you can keep your family safe and keep bears from being destroyed. There are a number of things you can do:

Garbage

• Make sure your garbage is in a bear resistant bin;

• Put out your garbage out the morning of pick up;

• Before garbage pick-up, store your garbage inside your garage or in a secured outbuilding.

Compost

• Bears like especially the smell of meat, bones and fish scraps of your composting piles. To avoid attracting bears compost only plant materials.

• Tactical layering your compost will reduce smells, thus attraction of bears to your compost. Composts should have equal amounts of brown and green materials added to reduce odours;

• More information about how to avoid attracting wildlife to your compost can be found on Wildsafe BC safe yard guide and BC Govenment composting regulations.

Livestock

• Ensure that your livestock is adequately enclosed in a sturdy, fenced enclosure of at least 6ft. hight. Even better if you use an eletric fence to prortect your livestock;

• Enclose your livestock in a barn or coop at night;

• Ensure that your fences does not wrap directly around a tree or any object that may enable the bear to climb over the fence.

• Store all your livestook feed in a secure location and ensure feeding areas are clean and free of attractants.

Fruit trees

• Fruits have strong odors for bears and are great attractants. Bears can become accustomed to harvesting fruits seasonally and come back regularly causing unnecessary human-wildlife conflict. Pick up fruit as soon as they are ripe and/or collect them as soon as they hit the ground.

 Other Tips

• Bird feeders often become bear-feeders, so please - only feed birds during the winter months;

• Feed pets indoors, or if fed out of doors, take in any feed that is not immediately eaten;

• Keep your barbecue clean and free from odours. Burn off the grill everytime after use and clean out the grease traps.