We make many small daily choices, like what to wear or eat. While these choices might seem small, they can carry significant consequences.
For example, if you struggle with eating well, deciding to pick up fast food on your way home from work might cause you to relapse into bad eating habits.
Small choices with potentially serious consequences are especially problematic when they impact others, including wildlife.
A young black bear killed in Canmore proves how simple choices can lead to deadly outcomes. The bear wasn’t killed for attacking residents or pets.
Believed to be three or four years old, Alberta Fish and Wildlife officers killed the young bear for eating crabapple trees in a backyard in the Peaks of Grassi neighbourhood for almost a week.
“It had been feeding there for several days prior and was basically feeding, eating apples, taking naps, eating more apples, taking naps just in the backyard,” Nick de Ruyter, program director for Bow Valley WildSmart, told the Rocky Mountain Outlook.
A bear is an obvious risk in a neighbourhood. Even if the animal is non-aggressive, a dog or child accidentally startling it can cause a potentially fatal encounter.
Wildlife officers usually haze bears to scare them away and minimize the chance of the animal returning. Hazing often involves loud noises, rubber bullets, or flashing lights to scare the bear away.
However, wildlife officers’ attempts to scare the hungry Canmore bear away were unsuccessful.
“It was in a few backyards in that area as well, and residents as well as the officers tried to yell and shout and scare it away but it didn’t budge. It wasn’t scared of any of the people and stayed there and was highly habituated,” explained de Ruyter.
Habituation is a death sentence for most animals and refers to when an animal loses its natural fear of humans after repeated exposure.
A Preventable Tragedy
The Canmore bear showed no fear when residents and wildlife officers tried to scare it away, a clear sign of habituation.
A few small choices led to the bear’s death. The first choice involved the Peaks of Grassi resident allowing fruit to remain on their fruit tree, which is against the law in Canmore.
Specifically, it is illegal to let wildlife attractants like fruit or berries accumulate on trees, bushes, or the ground because they attract wildlife, which can lead to human-wildlife conflicts.
Residents can keep fruit trees on their property, but only if they ensure that fruit is removed from the tree.
The fine for keeping attractants on a property is $250, but it can increase to $1,000 if there is wildlife or evidence of wildlife being attracted to the property.
According to Caitlin Miller, protective services manager and director of emergency management for Canmore, the town has already served a provincial violation ticket.
“We are following up with letters to all other residents in the Peaks of Grassi who have wildlife attractants on their property to remind them of the bylaw and to give them the opportunity to remove their fruit,” said Miller.
When a seemingly harmless animal is killed for public safety, it’s easy to point fingers. Could the wildlife officers have done more to haze the bear? Maybe. However, much of the blame lies with us.
Miller claims the black bear had been in the Peaks of Grassi neighbourhood for five days, but no one reported the animal to the town. Another small choice that led to the bear’s death.
“They just let the bear hang out there and feed, which is just making the problem worse. Because now the bear thinks that’s OK, and it’s going to stay there and just sleep and eat and sleep and eat – this is the outcome,” said de Ruyter.
Animals are living, breathing, and feeling creatures just like us. By feeding bears directly or indirectly, we put their lives in the crosshairs.
Make The Right Choice
Bears’ reliance on fruit trees for food is one of the main reasons they need to be relocated or killed in the Bow Valley.
Canmore created the Fruit Tree Removal Incentive Program to encourage residents to remove fruit trees from their property. The program covers 100 percent of the pre-tax cost of removing fruit trees or bushes up to $500. The program is first-come-first-served, but the town still has funds to spare in its budget.
If residents can’t or won’t remove their fruit trees or bushes, they must ensure no fruit accumulates that might attract wildlife.
The Biosphere Institute of the Bow Valley offers fruit-picking equipment that residents can borrow to help keep their fruit trees fruit-free.
“We’ve had a dozen or two dozen people borrowing our fruit-picking equipment, which is very positive, but you know, it is a town of 14,000 people,” said de Ruyter.
This year, it is especially important that residents in the Bow Valley remove wildlife attractants like fruit trees from their property.
Buffaloberries are fruit-bearing shrubs that serve as a critical high-calorie food source for bears. Large male grizzly bears can eat up to 200,000 of these berries daily.
Buffaloberry season typically runs from mid-July until September. This year’s poor buffaloberry yield has raised concerns about human-wildlife encounters.
Buffaloberries are a significant food source for bears as they prepare for hibernation. However, a University of Calgary study found that by 2080, climate change will cause buffaloberry fruit across the Rockies to ripen about three weeks earlier than present.
The change in the berries’ peak fruiting season means less time for bears to forage before hibernation. Without buffaloberries, bears are forced to look elsewhere for food, like your backyard.
“We can expect to see them at times and in places where we’re not used to seeing them. I think it could be argued that we’re already witnessing that,” University of Calgary professor Dr. Greg McDermid told the Calgary Herald.
The bear killed in Canmore is one of many black bears in the Bow Valley and Kananaskis Country that appear in populated areas searching for food.
The simple choice to remove fruit trees from your property or keep wildlife attractants off your property could be the difference between life and death for our province’s bears.
CORRECTION: Previously, the article implied that it was illegal to keep fruit trees on a property in Canmore. The article has been reworded to clarify that it is only illegal to allow fruit to accumulate on trees, bushes, or the ground. Residents can keep fruit trees on their property, but they must ensure the tree remains fruit-free. Canmore residents are still encouraged to remove their fruit trees through the town’s Fruit Tree Removal Incentive Program.
