CANMORE – Planting new fruit-bearing trees in Canmore may be banned in a bid to protect bears and people.
Councillor Tanya Foubert was successful in getting support from her council colleagues to have administration include a prohibition on the planting of new fruit-bearing trees as part of a community standards bylaw being developed by administration for council’s future consideration.
The potential ban could also include planting of other new vegetation that’s a proven wildlife attractant, but there is no move to force the removal of any existing fruit-bearing trees such as crabapples or chokecherry or other wildlife attractant vegetation.
“Moving forward into the future we could show bold leadership in our community and on the environment by saying we don’t want any new types of these trees planted because it puts wildlife at risk,” she said during council’s meeting on Tuesday (July 5).
“I think that new bylaw is the right place to move forward with a prohibition on new trees. I think the discussion around how we regulate fruit-bearing trees in our community has been ongoing for a long time.”
The Bow Valley human-wildlife coexistence task force, which released 28 recommendations in 2018 to reduce the number and severity of encounters between people and bears, identified trees laden with fruit as a significant wildlife attractant.
With a keen sense of smell, bears that learn there is food in town will come back again and again, putting both bears and residents in harm’s way. Bears can become bold and aggressive, and even without contact, bears have been relocated far away, or killed, to protect people.
As bears look to fatten up in summer and into early fall in preparation for a long winter’s hibernation, fruit trees can also act as a gateway for them to get into other unnatural sources in town – bird feeders, greasy barbecues, recycling or garbage.
Grizzly Bear 148, a famous bear that was shipped out of Canmore in 2017 to a remote area in northwestern Alberta and was subsequently shot and killed by a hunter in neighbouring B.C., knew exactly where the fruit trees were in the Banff townsite.
Last year, at least 23 bears were captured throughout the Cochrane provincial fish and wildlife district, which includes Canmore and the Bow Valley. Five of those were over a one-week period in September.
For Coun. Foubert, one of the final straws was news last year of a mother black bear and her two cubs being killed by provincial wildlife officers in August amid concerns for public safety as they fed on a buffet of dogwood in a Canmore residential neighbourhood.
She said the province’s black bear response guide allows wildlife officers to relocate or euthanize the first time they encounter a black bear as either habituated or food-conditioned.
“That means that for black bears in our community that are getting into wildlife attractants like fruit trees, there’s no guarantee of a second chance,” Coun. Foubert said, noting death can be the outcome.
“I think that we can do better than that, and one way we can do better than that is by reducing the number of fruit-bearing trees we have in our community.”
The lack of a human-wildlife conflict specialist covering the region following the retirement of long-time Canmore-based specialist Jay Honeyman – the only such position in the province – was another concern raised by Coun. Foubert centred on coexisting with bears in this town.
“So far there’s no indication from the provincial government that they are going to replace that person, even though the grizzly bear management plan requires that every single grizzly bear management area has a human-wildlife conflict specialist employed in this province,” she said.
“For years we had one, so I have very little faith in the provincial government's role here to manage human-wildlife conflicts on its own. I think we have a role to play as well, and this is an opportunity to do something.”
Coun. Jeff Mah convinced his council colleagues for the community standards bylaw being developed by administration to include all new wildlife attractant vegetation in the proposed prohibition, not just fruit trees. It would not, however, apply to existing trees and vegetation that may be a wildlife attractant.
“I want to thank Coun. Foubert for her vision in bringing this forward because I think it’s timely,” he said.
“There is plenty of frustration with wildlife attractants and if we can stem the tide of future ones coming in, that would be super helpful.”
Dealing with existing fruit-bearing trees that attract bears is something Coun. Wade Graham would like to deal with in future.
“The last stats I saw was about 2,500 fruit-bearing trees in town including by the Town of Canmore,” he said in reference to an Alberta Environment and Parks survey in 2018.
“It is something that we need to deal with at some point in time, in the near future, and this is a step in that right direction.”
Longtime Coun. Joanna McCallum said past councils have approved budget items to provide tree replacements and had conservations about native and non-native tree and shrub species.
She said part of the challenge has been between planting Fire-Smart vegetation and trees and plants that are not wildlife attractants has meant “you’re pretty much able to plant concrete.”
“I’m not sure we’ve ever been really able to come to a place where we were, I don’t know, willing or able, maybe it’s COVID, to be able to say ‘no more, we don’t need to plant these any more’,” she said. “I think that this is a good step.”
Mayor Sean Krausert supported Foubert’s move as another municipal effort to reduce wildlife conflicts.
“Dealing with fruit trees is difficult when people already have them in their yards and I know we’ve been trying to encourage people to replace those trees,” he said in reference to a financial incentive program and education campaigns.
“This motion will at least limit the growth of that problem, so that we can hopefully then move to reduce the numbers over time and thereby reduce the conflict.”
