This summer's bear season has seen numerous complaints — and two bears shot — but bear-related conflicts appear to be down from previous years.
In 2013/’14, for example, 10 bears were destroyed.
There are still about four months to go before bears typically den and plenty of time for bears to get into trash bins and recycling carts if homeowners, businesses and stratas don't keep them secured.
And if bears get into them, they get used to human food, and become a nuisance and even a threat, requiring action from BC Conservation Officers.
Statistics released by the Ministry of Environment for April 1, 2015 to Aug. 18 for the Tri-Cities show that 856 human wildlife conflict reports were made, 23 were attended by conservation officers and, of those, two bears were destroyed — one each in Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam — and four were hazed.
Coquitlam and PoCo were the hot spots, at 504 and 220 complaints respectively, while Port Moody had 128 calls and only one was attended by a conservation officer.
