Squamish marked New Year's Day in a sad way with the destruction of the first bear of the year.
The bear, an immature male black bear, was destroyed Tuesday (Jan. 1) in the Timber Town mobile home court, Conservation Officer (CO) Dave Jevons confirmed Thursday (Jan. 3).
"We've had a number of ongoing issues around Timbertown with bears accessing garbage," Jevons said, who said that the bear in question had become conditioned to eating garbage and had been reported in the Timbertown area several times in the past six weeks.
COs had set a trap in the area for a week before Christmas, but were unsuccessful in trapping the bear.
They then got a call on New Year's Day from Squamish RCMP, who had gotten a call about a bear acting aggressively towards a resident.
"It wasn't the first time he'd charged the guy outside his workshop," said Jevons.
"Given the time of year and the circumstances the decision was made to destroy the bear.
"It wasn't the way we wanted to start the year."
Jevons said COs and workers from the Bear Aware program are growing frustrated with garbage-related issues leading to bears being killed.
"Unless locks are provided to residents, especially in Timbertown where they don't have a place to store their totes insidewe're going to continue to have these problems," he said.
"Once a bear's been feeding on garbage two weeks, there's nothing we can do. He'll return."
The Conservation Office Service and Bear Aware have written to Timbertown management outlining the District bear bylaw, which requires residents to either have their totes secured inside before garbage collection day or have a secure locking mechanism on their totes or have heavy fines.
COs have the ability to write tickets under the municipal bylaw, but Jevons says with only two officers for the corridor, they have other priorities.
"Really it should be the District and bylaw [officers] that are enforcing for the most part."
Rather, they are urging property owners and property managers to purchase locks.
"Because the residents don't own the totes, they're not able to provide locks, so we would look to either the management company or the District to provide locks, and that has happened in some areas," said Jevons, noting that some other trailer parks and strata corporations have provided tote locks for residents.
"We need to see an across-the-board solution, not a piecemeal solution. If you have 100 houses that have locks and two that don't, you'll still have problems."
Representatives from Bear Aware have made a request to talk to District of Squamish council again about the situation.
In 2007, a total of 11 bears were destroyed, down from a record number of 27 killed in 2004.
