Editor:
The past and current treatment of bears in our valley is either testament to a lack of really understanding bears or to a continued lack of political will to actually spend the money and do what’s needed to keep them on the landscape. Or both.
Can you picture the hardship this female black bear had to go through? First the super traumatic capture and tranquillization process. Next came the 250-kilometre – surely very rough and bumpy – relocation, which we've already known for decades is not working. Followed by a return journey, crisscrossed by all sorts of human hurdles, to the only home she knew, during which she lost one of her cubs. Keep in mind that bears mourn the loss of their relatives not unlike humans.
And how did we reward her for this incredible walk home made even harder by the little furballs sticking to her legs like velcroed lead weights? Execution is the only just word for it, as the Pissot’s letter in the Oct. 13 Outlook rightly named it. Just like hundreds of bears before her.
The label of a bear-smart community does not simply rest on a few bear-proof garbage bins. While I agree with Jay Honeyman in his Oct. 13 letter in the Outlook that we need to do a better job with garbage management in Canmore, it should require a bit more effort to earn the bear-smart label. For example, how hard can it be to introduce a new bylaw under which all businesses have to have certified bear-proof garbage bins?
Particularly during bad natural food years such as the current one – and there will be many more to follow on a regular basis thanks to a changing climate – simply managing garbage differently will not be the answer. There are a thousand other natural and anthropogenic attractants in the town, which even with the best garbage management will continue to lure bears into town.
Without a discussion, we need to eliminate access by bears to garbage, as it is the start to a relationship going sour. But the issue is so much bigger than that. If we truly care about our wildlife, the very next step has to be a complete stop to any further development. Not only does every additional square foot decrease natural habitat for bears, but at the same time it also increases unnatural attractive habitat, especially for the valley bottom-dwelling black bears. Never mind the additional people every new home will add to the already overcrowded trails, further alienating bears and other wildlife from otherwise good habitats.
Furthermore, I believe rather than continue wasting resources on relocations that don’t work, we should spend considerable time not on retraining bears that are not doing anything wrong but on policing us and on retraining humans about bear behaviour and on how to live safely with bears.
After having spent my past 35 years intensely amongst bears, it is beyond me why we still use the safety argument every time a bear is destroyed. Despite decades of black bears roaming our towns every single summer, I cannot remember the last time someone actually got hurt by a black bear. The saddest part about the spreading of this perpetual and irrational fear is that, in the end, the real issue is not human safety but the fear of lawsuits and insurance policies tied to money. As comparison, how many people get seriously hurt or even killed every year related to construction projects in our valley? But that, of course, goes on unchecked for obvious reasons.
In the end, it isn’t just garbage that kills our bears and many other animals in this valley as well as elsewhere. The problems are so much bigger. If we continue to ignore the fact that we lack visions that go beyond an economic one, no garbage management will ever solve those larger overarching issues. According to the newest stats recently released by World Wildlife Federation, 69 per cent of the planet's wildlife populations have been eliminated in less than one lifetime.
Reno Sommerhalder,
Banff
