Living near a greenbelt is a choice for many Tri-City residents but enjoying nature in such close proximity also comes with responsibilities.
While it would seem that being close to the forest should offer a sense of relief from day-to-day stresses of life, the opposite may be true if bears and cougars are wandering into your neighbourhood and staying because food is easily available.
And what we are learning after 10 years of covering this issue is that once an animal gets a taste of easily accessible food, they don’t tend to leave. A neighbourhood can be bear-free for years but that pristine reputation ends as soon as just one person leaves their attractants — pet food, trash, fallen apples — easily accessible.
The animal will return time after time to get access to that food, as did the Chineside bear, when someone left their garbage out. Once the bear becomes belligerent and demanding, the next visitor is the conservation officer, who has to deal with what has become a problem animal.
Usually, the bear has to be shot.
But it’s not just the large animals we have to be concerned about. Rats, raccoons and coyotes are also making their homes here, and when they start showing up, so do the larger prey animals.
What the destruction of three cougars last week in Port Coquitlam showed us is that wild animals, even cougars, which are usually loner animals, will change their behaviour to get food.
In this case, the cougars were attracted to small domestic animals, likely dogs and cats, but also raccoons, coyotes and small rodents that have become increasingly domesticated because of the bountiful buffet of food that is often laid before them.
What we now know is everyone has a role to play in creating a safe neighbourhood: Pets have to be leashed or kept indoors; bird feeders, including hummingbird feeders, have to be taken down; food waste has to be frozen or locked up; and berries and fruit have to be picked immediately.
Just one mistake can bring the wildlife traveling in the the treelined greenbelts, whether it be rodents or raccoons, bears or cougars, closer to our neighbourhoods.
It makes living near a greenbelt more work, but worth it for those who enjoy having nature on their doorstep.
