Dubious distinction: City leads province in bear calls

Around a third of all bear-related calls to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) this summer have come from Greater Sudbury, said the ministry's manager for the Sudbury district.

Trevor Griffin addressed Sudbury city council Tuesday about the city's ongoing nuisance bear problem, and said the ministry's Bear Wise Hotline has received around 1,300 calls from Sudbury since April, and around 3,900 calls provincewide.

The call volume has exploded since July, Griffin said, because hungry bears have been forced to travel to more populated areas in search of food, thanks to this year's poor blueberry crop.

At around 11 p.m. on Aug. 10, police dispatched a sow and her cub that had broken into a South End home on Muriel Crescent.

Griffin said said his staff in Sudbury trapped two other bears in the same area the previous week.

The sow killed Aug. 10 reportedly had two other cubs, and the Ministry of Natural Resources has already put measures in place to trap them.

“It will be a bit of a challenge to find them,” said Griffin.

Griffin said Sudbury has always had challenges when it comes to bears and leads the province for calls most years — even when blueberries are plentiful.

He said attractants — primarily garbage that is left out overnight, or not kept in a bear-proof container — aggravates the problem.

Large dumpsters near apartments in New Sudbury — where the bear issue has been most pronounced — represent a “buffet” for the bears, he said.

Some municipalities in Ontario, such as Elliot Lake and Timmins, have passed bylaws to prevent residents from putting their garbage out to the curb at night, in an effort to reduce encounters with black bears.

Some municipalities in western provinces, have passed even more strict bylaws to require bear-proof garbage bins.

But Sudbury Mayor Brian Bigger said a bylaw preventing residents from putting their garbage out at night would be difficult to enforce, because the city's bylaw officers work daytime hours.

Council instead agreed it should lobby MNRF Minister Bill Mauro to increase funding for the ministry's nuisance bear response in Greater Sudbury.

Ward 10 Coun. Fern Cormier said he finds it “deplorable” that the Ministry of Natural Resources' budget to respond to bear calls had been slashed, and that that responsibility had been downloaded to municipalities.

Griffin said as of next week he'll have six staff members in the Sudbury district trained to respond to bear complaints and trap the animals.

Two staff members are dedicated bear techs, who focus solely on trapping the animals.

But in 2012, when the ministry instituted the Bear Wise program and hotline – which primarily provides bear safety tips and education – conservation officers stopped responding to nuisance bear calls.

In case of an emergency involving a bear, Griffin said Sudbury residents should call 911 instead for police to respond.

Greater Sudbury Police Chief Paul Pedersen said during the council meeting that Sudbury police have answered 725 bear-related calls since March, and have had to respond to more than 40 per cent of them.

Responding to a nuisance bear call can take several officers anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours, Pedersen said.

“There is an impact on local resources and our officers,” he said. “We haven't gone to bear management school. This isn't our core function.”

Pedersen said the Greater Sudbury Police Service has handled 1,261 bear-related calls in the last two years. From 2008 to 2012 — the year conservation officers stopped responding to emergency calls — the police service responded to just over 1,100 calls.