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10 Terrace Review — Wednesday, July 16, 1986

Bear proof safety tips ©

TERRACE — Bear-
breeding season is keep-
ing local conservation
authorities such as Lance
Sundquist, from the
Ministry .of Environ-

ment, busier than usual:

in dealing with distur-
bances around residen-
tial areas.

by Mark Venema

With this season in
progress, the bear cubs
of last year, now about
1% years old, are
turned away from the
adult sow. These
younger bears in turn are
attracted by garbage or
beehives and often go
towards town when their
habitat area is near the
town’s periphery. Then
it is Sundquist’s job to
remove the problem bear
by trapping or destroy-
ing it.

In order for Sundquist
to catch the bear he must
establish where the
animal has been and will
be, that is, the bear’s
movement pattern. At
first, and at this time of
the season, the bear has
not developed such a
pattern and Sundquist
must wait until the
animal does, otherwise it
would be too difficult to
set the trap. Here a snare
trap may be used.

Where the _ bears
establish their patterns
also depend on what they
are attracted towards.
Their biggest attraction
is accumulations of gar-
bage. The bears will
come right into town,
said Sundquist. In fact,
Terrace residents learn
this only too well when
they visit the Terrace
dump hoping to catch a
glimpse of the Kermodei;
a light-colored almost
white relative of the
black bear.

Bee-keeping also
presents a problem for
Sundquist who tries to
encourage recreational
bee-keepers to situate
bees away from areas to
which bears could poten-

Animals
receive
wildlife
status

On June 24 the
Ministry of Environment
announced the presen-
ting of ‘‘Wildlife Status’’
to 14 animals.

In all, four species of
bats, one specie of
salamander, one toad,
one frog, one lizard and
six species of snakes,
received provincial pro-
tection.

tially have access. Usual-
ly the few commercial
bee-keepers have plat-
forms or electric fencing
to keep the bears from
getting at the honey they
can easily smell. Only a
few weeks ago one bear
was caught and
destroyed after it
demolished a_recrea-
tional keeper’s hives in

- Remo. Here, said Sund-

‘St was again a
of inap-

quist,
question

Bie. 3 "game.
i eS geet

. “<

wo

Black bear dines out at local
garbage dump.

propriate housing for the
beehives.”” The problem
is that many recreational
bee-keepers do not
bother taking the
necessary measures that
will prevent bears from
coming to the hives.

Two ways of dealing
with the bears once cap-
tured is: one, immobiliz-
ing the animal and mov-
ing it to another area or;
two, destroying the bear.
Sundquist has dealt with
approximately 15 bears
this season in the
Kitimat, Terrace and
Prince Rupert areas.

In most cases the bear
is destroyed. The reason
for this is that the bear
loses its instinctive fear
of humans, making the
risks too large to start
releasing these animals in
the wild. In the
wilderness these bears,
who are now used to
humans, may not simply
turn and run if they see a
hiker or camper as. they
usually do when unac-
customed to human
presence. Instead they
may attack, particularly
if it is a black bear.’

If the conservation
authorities should come
across a grizzly or Ker-
modei bear, extra
precautions are insured
as these are a rarer

species and an attempt is:

made to actually cap-
ture, immobilize,
transport and release the
bear in the wild either by
helicopter or road vehi-
cle transport.
Capturing and im-
mobilizing the bear
within the city limits is
done in a couple of ways.
One way is to use a
culvert bear trap which
is, said Sundquist,
“simply a big culvert on
wheels.’’ Another
method is the setting up
of a leg snare for bears

that are developing a

_ing,

specific movement pat-
tern in and out of the
bush. And the third is
immobilizing the bear
with drugs, and darts.
The leg snare is most
common and has a suc-
cess ratio of 75-85 per-
cent; once the bears have

established their move-

ment patterns. The prin-
ciple of this kind of trap,
said Sundquist, is to
draw the bear away from
the area to which it has
been attracted by remov-
ing the garbage so that
the bear can smell the
trap’s bait. Residents
must co-operate by

cleaning up the garbage

and tying up any dogs
that could scare off or
inhibit the bear from
coming to the trap.

. Using drugs to im-
mobilize the bears is not
as simple as it may seem,
said Sundquist. ‘‘Im-
mobilizing animals with
the use of drugs is a very
scientific art.’? The drugs
that Sundquist uses take
from 10 to 15 minutes to
have full effect. Now, if
one were to imagine, said
Sundquist, the negative
reaction caused by the
pain from insertion of a
dart the size of a ball
point pen with an inch
and a half long needle, a
person would want to
stay away from the
grumpy bear even
though it was slowly
sedating.

The bear’s reaction is
unpredictable. These
drugs are seldom used
when the animal is
within residential areas,
except perhaps for a cub
in a tree. The crew who
takes care of immobiliza-
tion with darts needs
three people; one to use
the dart gun and two
prepared as back-up who
are ready to destroy the
bear if problems occur.

The drug that is used
for this can be a com-
bination of Rompum
and Ketamine and is safe
for the conservation of-
ficers to use. A faster ac-
ting drug that would
sedate the bear almost
instantly is M-99 but
again there is difficulty
using this drug for two
reasons. First, the drug is
highly dangerous to han-
dle and lethal to humans.
If one drop soaked
through the pores of a
hand, death could result.
The second problem is
that the bear can over-
dose if the dosage is
measured incorrectly
which is not a rare occur-
rence since the quantity
of drug used is depen-
dent upon an eyed-up
estimation of the bear’s
weight.

Though most of the
bears are destroyed Sun-
dquist said, ‘‘most peo-
ple see that there is no
alternative.’ Consider-
as well, that the

‘Lake up to the Yukon

- shortage.”

black bear - population in
Northwest B.C., (the
area northwest of Burns

border and over the .
Queen Charlotte Islands)
is 40,000, said Sundquist
“there certainly is no

Black bears visit

The bears are out of hibernation and can be seen rummag-

Ing around the Terrace dump in search of food.
Sherry Halfyard photo

The population of
bears as well as moose
has actually increased
partially due to the logg-
ing industry. Logging
changes the ecological
cycle in that more logg-
ing means more low
brush develops and con-
sequently increases the
bear and often moose
populations.

Some words of advice
that Lance Sundquist,
who has been working
for the Ministry of En-
vironment in Terrace for
the last seven years, gives
area residents would be.
to ‘‘maintain your gar-
bage and compost in a
bear-proof manner. If a
bear comes around give
(the Ministry of Environ-
ment) a call. Bear
maintenance is common
sense. For example, if
you are cleaning fish,
don’t leave fish heads
around,”

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