Everywhere you turn in Golden there seems to be another story about another bear wandering through town or, in one case in Parson, into someone’s house. In Golden over the past few weeks we have seen the lives of four bears end. This is an all too common experience these days.
Part of the reason many people live in a town like Golden is for the lifestyle and surroundings.
People enjoy being close to all of the natural beauty that the mountains and backcountry provide. Sadly in many cases this comes at a cost for the animals.
The bears and other wildlife were in this area long before people decided to build a town and call Golden home. People moved into their space and interfered with what nature was doing and there is no going back.
Golden Bear Aware does a wonderful job of trying to educate people on how to limit attractants that people create. They also attempt to change the way of thinking through education of younger residents.
This is truly the best we can do. But still bears are being killed just around the corner from primary schools where children are playing and are being seen all over town.
Conservation Officers who I have spoken to in the past have always said the last thing they want to do is put an animal down, and when they do many people always seem upset over the death of an innocent animal.
But what I would like to know is what is the alternative? Increasingly all over towns like Golden, Invermere and just about everywhere else in the Kootenays, wildlife is becoming more habituated.
While living in Invermere, I rarely made a trip into town where I did not have to slow down or stop for a deer. The number of times a driver would be driving through town and almost hit an animal became impossible to count.
It even got to the point where a gang of wild turkeys were taking over some of the side streets.
What can never be lost on us all as residents in these towns is that as habituated as the animals may become they are still wild. They may seem like a pet dog that is all loveable and cute but deep down inside there is the potential of a tragedy happening.
A deer is extremely cute until it attacks a small child and then the great question would be, why wasn’t something done to avoid a potentially dangerous issue? Bears are also trapped in the same predicament once they start spending time in a town.
This is not the fantasy world of the Winnie-the-Pooh books that I enjoyed so much as a child. The bear and pig are not best friends with the tiger and Christopher Robin. There is always the chance that an animal will attack. Shooting a bear may not be the choice we want to hear but conservation is left with little choice. As long as people are surrounding themselves with nature then the interaction is inevitable. Animals will be hit by cars and trains.
More will realize they like hanging out in Golden just as much as the residents who live here, and someone will have to make a tough decisions to keep us all protected.
We as residents have to do our part and try not to make a bad situation worse. So the next time you see a Bear Aware representative out at an event you should drop by and make sure you are doing what you can to limit the number of animals that die in Golden.
