A View Royal teenager said she was heartbroken when a mother black bear was shot by conservation officers last June in her neighbourhood, leaving three orphaned cubs.
Alaina Miller assembled a memorial near her home at Park Ridge Place in the Riverside community between Highland Road and Craigflower Creek. There’s a little bear statue there with photos of the bruin she named Mama and she’s brought blackberries, wildflowers and even valentines over the months that followed the mother bear’s death by conservation officers.
This spring, there’s a fresh bunch of daffodils and brochures about how to be bear-aware in residential neighbourhoods.
On Tuesday, Alaina and her mother, Andrea Miller, appeared for the second time before View Royal council asking councillors to bring bear-proof garbage cans to their neighbourhood and ramp up bylaws that would better protect bears from getting into residential refuse.
And their efforts, along with those of neighbours, were rewarded as council agreed in a 4-2 vote to a small pilot project to supply the neighbourhood around Craigflower Creek and Thetis Lake Park with bear-proof garbage cans. It would be the first municipality in the Capital Region to supply the latched curb-side receptacles, following communities including Port Alberni and Port Hardy.
“Bears are sacred animals and we have to take steps to ensure their safety,” said Alaina, 16, a Grade 10 student at Esquimalt High. “Bears should be able to be here. This is their ecosystem, but we have to make it safe for them and the people who live here, too.”
The $5,000 will provide about 17 of the bear-proof bins, which isn’t a lot but it’s a start, said Andrea Miller.
“It’s a step forward in preventing human-wildlife conflict,” she said. “Council [also] plans to provide education and develop a policy to tell people to leave garbage in secure enclosures such as garages” until the day of garbage pickups.
Conservation officers shot the mother black bear following reports over a month of the animal getting into food and garbage on park trails and climbing onto porches looking for food. The Conservation Officer Service said the bear had an ear tag indicating it had already been moved by conservation officers from a residential area in Langford in 2019.
In a statement, the service said bears that display food-conditioned behaviour and show a minimal fear of people are not candidates for relocation or rehabilitation, as the risk to public safety is too great.
The three orphaned cubs were tranquilized on site and taken the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre in Errington, where they are all healthy, exhibiting normal bear behaviours and awaiting release back into the wild in June by provincial wildlife officials.
“The three cubs are certainly doing very well,” Derek Downes, a lead animal rehabilitator at the recovery centre, said on Friday.
The trio, named Rush, Midas and Leslie, joined four other orphaned black bear cubs at the facility last year.
All the bear cubs undergo regular heath checks and examinations by veterinarians and staff. They are raised in enclosures closed to the public but can be viewed with monitors on the site. The nearby Qualicum First Nation, along with a local fish hatchery, supply salmon to feed the cubs as well as injured birds of prey.
View Royal Mayor Sid Tobias said bear-proof bins are not the sole answer to preventing bear interactions in the community. Staff are looking at policies regarding food scraps and other bear attractants. He said there could be some policy and bylaw changes, but noted some areas such as around Thetis Lake are more prone to bear activity than others.
“We will look at a more holistic approach and what we can do to decrease the attractiveness to bears,” he said.
View Royal staff prepared a report for council after the Millers’ Sept. 7 appearance in the chambers and concluded a town-wide implementation of the bear-proof receptacles would increase the solid waste budget due to the significant costs of the bins and how unlatching the bins would affect service levels on automated pickups. The report also noted any new wildlife attractant bylaw would include a higher level of service and costs required by the town’s bylaw enforcement division.
It recommends a stepped approach that starts with educating the community on storing garbage and attractants during peak bear periods.
The province saw the highest number of black bears killed by conservation officers in a single year during 2023, with 603 destroyed. That was up 22% from the previous year, when 493 were killed. Black bears are put down for various reasons including habituation to garbage, vehicle collisions and the displacement of bears into human areas due to a record-breaking wildfire season.
The Conservation Officers Service said in a statement there has been a decrease in human-wildlife conflicts on Vancouver Island in 2023 and fewer bears were put down than in the previous two years. The View Royal bear was one of 56 killed last year. In 2002, 85 bears were shot and 74 in 2021.
Garbage continues to be a significant cause of human-wildlife conflict across Vancouver Island.
“Once a bear finds easily obtainable non-natural food sources and displays a minimal fear of people, it is no longer a candidate for rehabilitation or relocation and must be put down to keep the public safe,” the service said.
“Conservation officers are working collaboratively with communities to increase awareness and education around the importance of attractant management,” the service said. “Everybody has a role to play to prevent bears from accessing human food sources and help keep wildlife alive and wild.”
Andrea Miller said she hasn’t seen any bears in her neighbourhood yet this year, but expects sightings soon. She said last year bears were spotted almost weekly through the spring and summer months, though it was difficult to tell if it was multiple animals.
“As residents, we have gone door to door encouraging people to secure their waste,” said Miller.
In April, the neighbourhood will host a wildlife co-existence presentation by Wild Wise at the site of the black bear’s shooting to educate people on strategies to secure attractants.
