Over 20 residents attended a District of Hudson's Hope council meeting on March 4, expressing their dissatisfaction and concerns over a newly proposed property maintenance bylaw which would introduce financial penalties for residents who fail to clean up attractants from their yards, such as fruit dropping from trees.
The bylaw has already passed first and second reading. It was proposed by council to address an increase in bears frequenting the town last summer, after Hudson's Hope RCMP Detachment Commander Cpl. Erich Schmidt and Conservation Officer Sgt. Brad Lacey informed council that a number of residents were not complying with requests to remove attractants.
Schmidt attended the March 4 meeting, and explained that calls for bears has been high, with 12 calls when he started his post in 2018, noting the situation has progressively gotten worse, with 79 active files in 2023. There were 13 encounters reported where bears charged at people, and one incident where a bear was trying to enter a home.
"90 percent of those were due to the attractants of bears due to garbages, and apple trees, and fruits, and stuff like that, that were not being picked, they were being just left out," said Schmidt. "Some people were actually feeding the bears, purposely."
Schmidt noted that RCMP can already enforce bylaws, though it's a low priority, and can be called to assist both bylaw and the conservation service, especially in matters of public safety.
"We started off with warnings, right off the get-go, it was warnings, it was 'we don't want a ticket, we don't want to give them', and then from there it progressed up to actual tickets," said Schmidt, noting he recalls five tickets were issued.
The bylaw also targets unsightly conditions on properties, "the accumulation of Rubbish, graffiti, or Derelict Vehicles," and includes broken fencing materials, uncontrolled plants without landscaping, crumbling or cracking structures, and fines start at $100 for the offences.
Residents also objected to a steeper penalty of $50,000 contained in the bylaw for those not complying with its provisions, in addition to concerns about being able to grow fruit and other foods for themselves.
"Through all of years here, we have practiced varying levels of self-sustenance, as we believe raising your own livestock and organically growing your own produce is both a smart and healthy choice," said Larry Edgar, a 25-year resident on Adams Street. "And with inflation on the rise, self-sustenance also helps to offset the high cost of Northern living."
Edgar added he feels the positives of self-sustenance have been disregarded, while the potential negatives have been focused on, noting anything extra produced is offered to friends, family, and strangers in need. The food has been a help to those on fixed incomes, he added.
"We never deliberately allow our food to accumulate on the ground, that would be wasting our hard work," said Edgar, noting he has no plans of checking regularly when he leaves his residence to go camping in the summer, regardless of any fine.
Hudson's Hope Mayor Travous Quibell said council has no intentions of preventing anyone from practicing self-sustenance, but noted the matter is chiefly one of public safety, which they had hoped to address through the bylaw, apologizing for the legalese involved. Education and awareness is needed so residents understand their obligations to not add attractants, he explained.
"You know, having a couple apples fall on the ground or a few hanging on a tree isn't going to be an issue, but when it accumulates to the point where they're starting to rot, produce smell, and attract animals, then that starts to become a problem," said Quibell. "And it's not just a problem for your property, it's a problem for your neighbours. When it starts to impact your neighbours, we have an issue, and when we start to breach that social contract where we're impacting our neighbours, then bylaw kicks in."
Enforcement does not automatically involve a fine or forced through a court process, explained Quibell, it starts with conversations.
"We talk to you first. You know, we address the issue, and so some of our issues this last year came from vacant property," he said, noting it may be appropriate to remove plants from vacant properties.
"The remedies start easy, but they have to have some teeth to them, otherwise they don't have the effect they need to have," Quibell noted.
James Rhymer, another long-term resident, said the bylaw doesn't feel applicable to Hudson's Hope, questioning if any kids have actually been harmed by bears.
"This is not Vancouver. All of us guys live here for the freedom that we have here, we don't really want to be legislated into humiliating circumstances because we've maybe got a crab-apple tree or something," he said, noting problem bears have been trapped and removed in the past.
Elaine Ryhmer, James' wife, noted the increase of bears could be attributed to loss of habitat, with much of Northern BC plagued by wildfires last summer. She also grows her own food and has fruit trees.
"I think a lot of it stems from the fact that we had a lot of hungry bears around here last summer," she said. "There have been forest fires, the feed for the bears, I'm quite sure has been burnt up, a lot of it, and so that's why you know, we had, we always have bears, but I think we had extras, eh?"
"There needs to be some understanding of bears," she added. "They come here a couple of weeks in the fall, because there's lots of food; there's fruit, there's vegetables, there's all kinds of good stuff. They're not here to hurt us, they're not here to eat our kids or anything like that, they're here because they're hungry and there's good food here."
Ross Tremblay, another long-term resident, with family ties to the town, said he refuses to remove any fruit trees, as they were planted by his mother, and disagreed that residents' failure to comply with removing attractants was the cause, citing habitat loss such as the Battleship Mountain Fire and the clearing of islands in the Peace River.
"The biggest one and where the big bears lived, I've lived here all my life, down on the islands, right below town. We didn't see them because they lived there, they had lots of habitat. Beautiful, paradise for them. Whoosh, wiped out, gone last year, what are they going to do?" said Tremblay. "Not only that, we had a drought. The bushes didn't grow and once they were eaten, normally we rain to grow again and then there's more food."
He added that 2023 was an exceptional year for impacts to Hudson's Hope, but noted bears were a common occurrence when he was growing up, particularly in the fall. Tremblay also feels the $50,000 fine is excessive, and said the bylaw is written to 'coerce' residents into compliance.
"We don't need that. Everybody that's got fruit trees managed it, managed them. And it's actually who gets there first, the bears or we do, so it's a non-issue as far as I'm concerned," added Tremblay. "We live with the wildlife because we're in the Northern Boreal Forest."
A resident for the past twelve years, Ray Wagner told council he enjoys seeing the bears in the fall, who are visitors to apple trees on his property, and noted that he also grew up around bears, keeping an eye out for safety.
"The one thing that I know is a well-fed bear is not looking for something else to eat. There's lots for them to eat here, there's lots of Saskatoons, there's lots of wild bushes, there's lots. We're not going to keep the bears from ever coming back," he said. "But I do know that a well-fed bear is not going to go after your cat or your dog, and your kids."
"But what do go after your dogs and your cats, and sometimes you, are deer. That's all I'm going to say," added Wagner.
You can read a portion of the agenda with the proposed bylaw here:
March 4 COW Agenda 21 60 by Tom Summer on Scribd
