Another bear has been ended up a dead bear in Hope, after foraging for food in a residential area.
Lydia Koot, a bear educator in Hope, says the bear was shot on the weekend, “because he ended up being in peoples garbage and bird feeders.”
“This is not acceptable,” she says. She says it’s unclear why bears are still out, but the fact that they keep finding food in backyards isn’t helping.
“One thing we know for sure is that bears go to sleep because of a lack of food in nature,” she wrote on Facebook. “If they keep finding garbage or filled bird feeders, or any other attractants, they might not go to sleep at all.”
She questions whether feeding the birds is more important than saving the bears who eat the seeds. Once a bear becomes human habituated, conservation officers are left with little choice but to put the bears down. Only certain bears are eligible for relocation, they’ve told The Hope Standard previously.
Koot says it’s not the officers’ fault.
“People are quick to blame the COs, but the responsibility rests by all of us,” she says. “We all need to clean up our properties and make sure we scare the bear away from our gardens instead of just grabbing our cameras. Let’s keep them wild and safe and they might go to sleep if nothing yummy is to be found.”
READ MORE: ‘This is nearly unprecedented’: Five bears killed after roaming near Penticton school
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