B.C. conservation officer kills 9 bears in a week

Conservation officers had to euthanize nine bears last week because they were becoming dangerous to humans.

"All the bears were displaying behaviours that were associated to being food conditioned to garbage and other attractants,” explained Gordon Hitchcock, Acting Deputy Chief conservation officer.

“They were becoming or were habituated, so they were very indifferent to people and not fearful of people."

The deaths happened in the Revelstoke area within seven days. Hitchcock said it’s not unusual for the Conservation Officer Service to receive a high number of calls during the summer, but it was unusual that so many bears were put down in one week.

He said it’s time for people to learn how to be bear aware. People should keep garbage stored properly and secure, food out of reach including compost, bird feed and live animals like pets and wild stock.

"We do have legislation and have the ability to issue tickets and orders for chronic areas or patterns that are surfacing where there are individuals that are not following the attractant rules," the acting deputy explained to KelownaNow.

The main priority for the Conservation Officer Service is to keep bears wild and people safe. This happens when people don’t feed bears and bears don’t roam into urban areas.

Killing a bear isn’t the first option for a conservation officer. Officers look to see if the bear can be moved before deciding to euthanize it, but that isn’t always an option.

"In some cases where there is no or very limited indication of food condition and habituation or public safety concerns, certain animals are considered to be translocation candidates, but once a bear gets to a stage where it’s conditioned to food, translocation is not possible anymore,” Hitchcock said.

That’s exactly what happened to the bears in Revelstoke.

Hitchcock said the deaths of these bears have gotten a lot of attention and he hopes this makes people realize they have to do their part in keeping the bears in the wild.