A Ucluelet black bear has followed its nose into peril.
The region celebrated a significant achievement in 2023, finishing the year with zero black bears killed due to food habituation, but that performance doesn’t seem destined for a repeat as Ucluelet’s wayward bruin has become a frequent diner at unsecured food sources around town.
“We’re having a challenging time with that particular bear,” WildSafeBC Pacific Rim coordinator Bob Hansen told the Westerly News. “It’s showing up all over town and it’s really getting good at finding garbage and other things of interest that are not secured. It’s to the point now where we receive reports everyday and, sometimes, multiple reports everyday. It’s really highlighting for us all the things that we need to improve on.”
He said two other bears are breaking into bins in Tofino as well as one in Millstream and another in Hitacu, but Ucluelet’s bear seems to be sniffing its way to death row the fastest.
He added WildSafeBC keeps track of the region’s bears with the help of reports made directly to the organization as well as local social media posts and information received from the BC Conservation Officer Service and Parks Canada.
“Through that detailed tracking day-to-day as the season goes on, we actually get a very good idea of the description and behaviour of individual bears,” he said. “We’ve got a pretty good idea who’s who, where they are and where they tend to be active.”
He said the bear that’s found itself in trouble in Ucluelet was safely foraging on natural foods earlier in the season before it discovered accessible garbage, compost and other unnatural sources.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen it happen with many bears over time, something in particular tempts them away from the natural foods and, once they experience that they can get an easy meal and easy calories from unnatural foods, they quickly shift their energy towards finding those unnatural food rewards,” he said. “That’s what’s happened with this bear…For many weeks, it was just foraging naturally in and around the community, but now it’s really focused. It’s a prime example of what we describe as a food conditioned bear.”
The food conditioned label has historically been a death sentence for West Coast black bears and Ucluelet’s is running out of time to move along before the Conservation Officer Service is forced to step in.
“It’s really at risk of meeting a bad end,” Hansen said. “The Conservation Officer Service have to balance public safety versus conservation of the animal and, at some point, they may have to make a tough decision and try to remove the animal. That tends to be how things go once a bear is seriously food conditioned.”
He said local residents must collectively commit to two key actions to help keep the region’s wildlife wild, explaining that all garbage and compost carts must be anchored in place and the brass carabiners being used to keep lids shut must be replaced with steel ones.
“The biggest challenge facing all our communities right now is something we can fix, but it really will take every single resident to take action themselves,” he said.
“If (the bins) are outside and they have stuff in them, then they need to be anchored so the bear can’t drag them off and (people) need to replace the brass carabiners with steel carabiners. Those two actions would hugely reduce the number of reports and conflicts that are happening.”
The brass carabiners were provided to residents with the new garbage and compost bins passed out as part of the Alberni Clayoquot Regional District’s upgraded waste collection program in 2022. Bears have figured out how to break through the brass like butter though, so residents are being urged to replace the brass carabiners with steel ones available at local stores.
He added WildSafeBC Pacific Rim recently distributed information packages to about 250 residences in an effort to shut off the dire straits bear’s access to waste and push it towards natural food sources.
“We went door to door to door in multiple neighbourhoods where the bear’s been most active to ensure that each resident has the information they need and we’ll continue doing that from this point on,” he said.
He added information can also be found on WildSafeBC Pacific Rim’s website at wildsafebc.com as well as its Facebook page and the regional district’s website at www.acrd.bc.ca.
“There’s a vast amount of easily accessible information available to people through those sources,” he said.
He suggested a solid berry crop should help keep most bears well-fed and out of trouble.
“One of the things that’s giving me some hope right now is that it’s the best berry crop I’ve seen in years,” he said.
“There’s just so much natural food available to the bears right now and I suspect that’s why we don’t have more issues going on in our communities. The frequency of conflicts seems to have slowed with the exception of the Ucluelet bear…If we reduce the ease of accessing carts, then that’s really going to encourage (bears) to focus on those abundant natural food sources.”
