To say B.C. conservation officer Eamon McArthur and his co-workers were run off their feet last summer dealing with bears in the city would be a huge understatement.
Last year’s Bearmageddon resulted in more than 2,000 calls for service to the conservation office.
The majority of those calls came during July, August and September when the city was overrun with black bears wandering in from the surrounding forests looking for food to fatten up for winter hibernation.
Drought conditions most of the year dried up the berry crops that bears usually feed upon and led to wildfires that chased the animals closer to food sources in the city. They feasted on fruit trees and residential garbage placed in bins that were left unsecured by homeowners.
McArthur joined RCMP Spt. Shaun Wright and Insp. Darin Rappel at Monday’s city council meeting for a report on what happened in 2023. Police assisted conservation officers on multiple close encounters between bears and humans and were on the scene when some of the 77 bears were euthanized. Wright said the police usually get about a dozen bear-related calls each year. Last year it was well over 100.
Two other bears were shot and killed in the city last year, bringng the total to 79, In 2022 there were 43 euthanized bears and 38 met that fate in 2021.
In 2022, the Prince George district conservation office fielded 145 bear complaints in August. Last year the August number rose more than tenfold. The sheer number of calls each day last summer proved overwhelming for the four conservation officers, whose territory stretches west to Cluculz Lake, east to Holmes River east of McBride, north to McLeod Lake, and south as far as Cinema. That’s as large an area as the country of Belgium.
McArthur is also in charge of the Mackenzie district, which had similar bear problems last year.
It’s also the duty of a conservation officer to watch for poachers and follow up on tips about people hunting illegally. This year, McArthur will have one additional C.O. working with him in the city but he told council there’s enough work to easily put 10 to work.
“We don’t have the staff,” said McArthur. “Some of the officers were brand-new and they got thrown into this maelstrom of bear calls. We can call on assistance from other officers in Vanderhoof and Burns Lake, who did help us instrumentally.
“We took a lot of the calls where bears were not on-scene and we forwarded those calls as an attractant or citizen garbage issue to the bylaw office to investigate.”
In his presentation to city council at Monday’s city council meeting, McArthur stressed that homeowners have to do a better job at limiting the attractants that bring bears to their yards. Fruit trees, whether the fruit is edible or ornamental, are still a big concern, as are unsecured garbage bins.
The city issued public pleas for people to keep their garbage bins inside structures until pickup day and to keep them secured with tie-down straps. But not everybody complied and that led to bears becoming habituated and remained close to residential areas, knowing the bins and their smelly contents were abundantly available as a food source.
Bears broke fences climbing from yard to yard and while he can sympathize with property owners who have to pay for the damage McArthur said that's not enough to get them shot. But if they start pulling out windows, following or chasing people that can be enough to convince him to use his gun to destroy the bear.
“We don’t want it to become a predatory bear, especially in the realm of the city, that’s a major safety concern,” McArthur said.
“I’m looking toward it being another bad year and I hope I’m wrong.”
