Editor, The News:
Re: Top Stories 2019: Cost of ‘attractants’ to increase in new year after deadly year for bears.
I read with some interest your article on bears and I feel compelled to comment about the way it was presented.
If you read it carefully, it is suggested that all things that attract bears – from garden veggies, fruit trees, chickens, pets as well as garbage – could be fined up to $500.
As it reads, those of us who live in the more rural part of Maple Ridge or those in town who keep green produce plots could be fined for keeping a food garden for our own use or chickens for our own use or any of the small farmers in the area who grow food and breed fowl could be fined for having attracted bears.
Whereas, everyone should be responsible for cleaning their recycling and composting vegetable waste properly, picking up ripe fruit and not putting meat, fish or other foodstuffs out to be collected until the proper time.
You cannot force people to remove their trees and gardens, which is often a way of earning a living, for this is what the article suggests.
Such a statement should be clarified. We have lived in our home for over 27 and the bears pop in and out all around us.
A bear banger and a good loud shout soon chase them off.
Elizabeth Hancock
Maple Ridge
