Nearly 500 bears destroyed across B.C. this year

British Columbians love nature, but that draw to be in the wilderness is part of the reason the province has seen thousands of conflicts between humans and wild animals this year, a wildlife expert says.

Many B.C. communities have wilderness at their doorstep and that mixture can create problems, said Adam Ford, a biology professor at the University of B.C. Okanagan.

“We don’t expect to see a lot of bear conflicts in downtown Vancouver, because that’s a lot of country for a bear to get across, but it’s on the edges that we see these problems,” Ford said.

People also want to get up close and personal with wildlife, which can be dangerous for both humans and animals, he added.

One place the problem has grown is the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on the West Coast of Vancouver Island.

Some of the conflicts are because people are really excited to have this magical experience with a wolf on Long Beach, Ford said.

“And they do things they’re not supposed to, like ‘Here’s some food, wolf’ and then wolves become conditioned. They get used to people and handouts and that’s where things go wrong.”

Chris Doyle, deputy chief with the B.C. Conservation Officers Service, said there have been more than 20,000 reports of human-wildlife conflicts so far this year, ranging from cougar sightings to bear attacks.

More than 14,000 of the complaints were about black bears, while another 1,500 involved cougars and 430 were about grizzly bears, Doyle said.

Nearly 500 bears have been destroyed after encounters with humans, including 469 black bears and 27 grizzlies, said Mike Badry, wildlife conflict manager with ministry of environment.

Another seven grizzlies were moved, nine were “hazed” to deter them from interacting with humans, and one cub was sent to a rehabilitation facility.

Those numbers are “disturbing,” Ford said. “This is a very large-scale problem, when you’re thinking of that many conflicts over the entire province of B.C. That’s not one little isolated incident of someone leaving garbage out.”