BY KEITH LACEY
If you scare the living daylights out of a black bear when it wanders into an urban area in search of food, there?s a good chance it might never return.
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MNR bear technicians Blake Morgan (left) and Marc Bilodeau shot paint balls, bean bags and yelled at the top of their lungs during the release of a black bear caught last week in a residential neighbourhood near Richard Lake. |
That?s the basic premise behind a new initiative by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) to try and reduce the problem of nuisance bears.
?We want to make it the worst day of that bear?s life,? said Mike Hall, a biologist and project leader with the MNR?s Bear Aversion Therapy Program.
?If the bear associates coming to an urban area with being a very unpleasant experience, the idea is it will stay away and not come back.?
Last Friday, MNR crews were called by a homeowner in a residential neighbourhood on Desloges Road, near Richard Lake in the city?s South End, after a 375-pound black bear wandered onto the property looking for food.
A MNR crew shot the bear with a tranquilizer gun and brought it to the ministry headquarters on McFarlane Lake Road. They placed a Global
Positioning System (GPS) tracking collar around the bear?s neck in order to track its whereabouts throughout the summer.
Several hours later, once the drugs had worn off, the MNR crew brought the bear back to the yard where they captured it.
This time, however, crews were armed with paintball guns, firecrackers, bean bag guns and very loud voices.
After positioning the bear cage to allow the animal to run directly into the bush, the cage was opened and crew members started yelling as loud as
possible and then shot paintballs, bean bags and lit off firecrackers as the frightened bear ran quickly into the forest.
Hall said the ministry plans on capturing, tagging and releasing 11 bears over the next several weeks and is hopeful putting the black bears through this traumatic experience will keep them away from urban areas.
?Old methods such as relocating or shooting nuisance bears just doesn?t work in our opinion,? Hall said. ?If you relocate a bear, there?s inevitably another one ready to takes its place...and we don?t like killing animals.
?The idea behind this aversion program is that if we can make the experience of coming to an urban area so unpleasant, we believe the bears will remain in the woods and find alternative food sources.?
Because the program is so new, ministry officials aren?t positive the aversion program will work, but are confident it will because black bears don?t enjoy intermingling with humans at the best of times and only come to urban areas in search of food.
?If these bears associate human contact with a very unpleasant experience, then we believe they will opt to stay away from human contact,? Hall said. ?If they associate being in the bush with being safe, then hopefully they?ll stay in the bush.?
All black bears share a voracious appetite after hibernating for several months and they need to stock up body fat to prepare for the next
hibernation. That?s why it?s so important for property owners to do everything in their power to ensure black bears don?t wander near their property.
?When a bear smells dog food or a barbecue where meat is left unattended, it?s a free meal in the bear?s mind,? Hall said. ?Homeowners who live near bush areas must take extra precautions if they want to ensure they don?t get an unexpected visit.?
After tracking the bears over several months with the GPS collars, ministry staff should have a very clear idea if the aversion program works, Hall said.
If it does work, there?s a strong possibility the program will escalate to the point every nuisance bear caught by ministry staff will face the most miserable day of its life, he said.
While the MNR continues to test the aversion program, they?re not encouraging the average homeowner to try it. While making loud noises and yelling will often scare a bear away, people shouldn?t confront a bear in an open space and should only bang pots and make noise from behind a door
where they can be protected.
Brent MacDonald, a black bear technician with the MNR, said if a black bear wanders onto someone?s property and there?s a feeling of ?imminent
danger,? the property owner can call 911.
