Black bears have some marvelous, built-in survival functions - one being their unusual reproduction feature. Bears mate in May or June, but the fertilized eggs do not implant on the wall of the uterus until the female goes into her winter den late in the fall. If the year has been a bad natural food year, she will produce no, or only one cub. If she goes into her den fat and healthy, she may produce up to four cubs. This ensures that a thinner sow will have a greater chance of survival through the winter, as well as the next year should another poor natural bear food year occur, which is often the case.
If a sow wanders into our community because natural food is scarce and finds garbage, compost and fruit - of course she will gorge herself to fatten up in preparation for denning. She will have a nice big family as a result and emerge in the spring all ready to pack on the pounds she lost in hibernation and nursing her young.
As is often the case, one poor food year is frequently followed by another, so back to the easily accessed, energy rich, human food she goes with her young in tow. So in just one year, one natural bear has become four garbage bears and so on
To help avoid this cycle from occurring, there are some things you can do. Garbage is obvious and we appreciate your efforts to manage it correctly. If you have fruit trees that you cannot pick or will be away when the fruit is ripe, please call 604-892-5796 ext #410. Volunteers will come and pick your fruit, which will go to the food bank, soup kitchen and needy families in the community.
If you wish to have a kitchen compost, keep it in a sealed bucket in your house and then once a week take it to Carney's, where they have a compost bin outside their front door where you can dump it - free of charge.
Two garbage raids were conducted this week, one in Garibaldi Estates and another in Brackendale. Garibaldi Estates had ten "night before" offenders. I would like to give the neighborhood from Starview Place and north a gold star, as we did not find one garbage can on the curb the night before pick up!
Brackendale had a whopping 21 "night before" offenders with four repeats from the last raid on June 30.
