The Editor,
It is the time of year that spring flowers are blooming and bears are emerging.
This time of year is absolutely critical when it comes to managing bear attractants because many of these bruins have had their winter sleep and they awake with a big appetite.
As a community, we should not rest in the way we manage things such as wildlife attractants (household waste), just as we should not forget that it is time to refresh our Bear Awareness for yet another year.
Bears are very much food-driven creatures. They needed a lot of calories to enter into denning and they need to replenish those reserves in spring as they emerge from sleep. In all likelihood, many of us have, through the winter months, fallen back into old and not very Bear Aware habits.
This is the time when we should brush up on our bear safety and do things like clean out any garbage in sheds or other places it may have accumulated over winter. These animals have a keen sense of smell and can tell that there is discarded fruit, bones or even diapers hiding somewhere in your waste. Barbecues should also be given a scrubbing to remove that tasty buildup and bird feeders put away for the year.
In other words, we should all know by now that doing everything we can to keep them out of garbage is the key to keeping these animals alive.
I'm not the first to point out that a fed bear is a dead bear and I won't be the last.
Philip Warburton,
Port Coquitlam
