cover story


Don’t be part of the problem


KEN OWENS


Electric fences are a much better way to deal with bears than shooting themor using ineffective scare tactics.


By Judie Steeves W


ild honey and berries are high-calorie, natural food sources for bears foraging in


the forest for a living.


No surprise then that honey produced by hives of domestic honeybees and cultivated berries that densely cover acres of fields are a find not soon forgotten by hungry bears, who will return again and again to the buffet spread before them by people. “They’ll gorge themselves all day on unsecured berry crops, and once those are harvested, they will move into the nearby community,” explains Fraser North Conservation Officer, Sgt. Todd


Hunter.


And, he notes, there were berry fields nearby where a 10-year-old Port Coquitlam girl was attacked and critically injured last August by a black bear sow accompanied by a cub. That’s the worst case scenario once bears lose their fear of humans, after becoming habituated to eating people food—whether that’s honey from hives, cultivated berries or garbage left out by homeowners.


“The bottom line is conflicts can be reduced if electric fences are erected around both bee hives and berry fields,” advises Hunter.


Few growers so far have taken that step, despite high cost crop losses due to marauding bears, but those who have find that conflicts are reduced, he says. “As many as 15-20 bears have been reported in one berry field, gorging themselves all day on berries. From my experience we have a black bear population that has relied on berries. They’re not wild,” he adds. Despite being hazed by wildlife repellants and scared by noisemakers,


4 British Columbia Berry Grower • Spring 2017


they’re still not fazed, he notes. Some growers will ‘shoot, shovel and shut up,’ says the conservation officer, adding, “One individual shot 10 bears on his property and never reported any of them. The Wildlife Act applies to such situations and he could be charged and fined.”


Hunter warns that growers have a responsibility to practice good agricultural practices by using an electric fence to keep problem wildlife out of their farms, particularly where the property is up against wilderness areas, mountains or forest.


There is a healthy population of black bears in the Fraser Valley, and Hunter believes that could be influenced by the presence of easy-to-access fields of berries. Although berries are part of a bear’s natural diet, mono crops of high density fruit, such as berry fields, are not natural, and bear densities increase where there is such high-quality feed available for them.


Growers are contributing to the problem of bears becoming human- habituated, and dangerous, in


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