Council spoke glowingly of the performance of the Bear Aware program at a special council meeting on Tuesday (Jan. 10), but provincial government funding cuts may cause the program to lose some of its steam.
Bear Aware coordinator Meg Toom presented the 2011 year end report from the group, citing major improvements in human-bear conflicts in Squamish since the program's inception in 2005.
Toom said particularly impressive has been the garbage tote program. Back in 2004, 30 per cent of all bear sightings were related to bears accessing garbage, while in 2011, with a similar number of sightings, the number has dropped to 17 per cent. Also, in 2004, 27 bears were destroyed in Squamish compared to only one in 2011.
Mayor Rob Kirkham said he supports the program and the motion to continue the support of Bear Aware was unanimously adopted by council.
"I think you do an incredible job for Squamish," he said. "We always see your smiling face at so many events around town, but beyond that it's been an effective program. Expanding and continuing the program is beneficial to the community."
Coun. Patricia Heintzman agreed with Kirkham but said she'd like to see the program also work on addressing cougar-related issues in Squamish.
"I'm always floored with the amount of work that Meg does on a small budget," she said. "She's such a great advocate but we need to address cougars as well and come up with some sort of community plan for dealing with them."
Coun. Doug Race asked Toom what she had heard about funding from the Province. She said she hadn't heard anything yet.
"As it stands there is no word and usually we hear from them by now," she said.
Robin Arthurs, general manager of corporate services for the District of Squamish (DOS), said funding from the province amounts to between $6,000 and $8,000, with the district funding the rest. According to Toom's report, the DOS's preliminary budget shows approximately $10,000 for the Bear Aware program in 2012.
Sgt. Peter Busink, a local conservation officer who helped Toom with the presentation, said the DOS needs to do everything in its power to get the funding from the province and keep Bear Aware around.
"We have three field officers that cover from north of Lions Bay to Pemberton and it is a significant workload per office, the highest in the province," he said. "We can only service the highest priority and have no capacity to deal with talking to people about prevention."
Toom told The Chief on Wednesday (Jan. 11) that she was pleased with how the meeting went but stressed the importance of the provincial funding.
"I was very encouraged and there seemed to be a lot of support behind it," she said. "Everyone has embraced the program so it was really nice to hear that affirmation last night."
But the provincial funding remained on her mind.
"Next month they go through the whole budget, so it still has to go through the DOS budgeting process," she said. "In the interim they're writing a letter to the Ministry of Environment to ask that they support the program. It makes a huge difference because they might be on the fence, but if they get that funding, it makes the program that much more accessible."
Toom said plans for Bear Aware in 2012 include creating an urban wildlife plan for the DOS with a bigger emphasis on cougars and coyotes. She also wants to continue with all Bear Aware campaigns and offer electric fencing workshops to locals.
