Northern Bear Awareness Society President Dave Bakker believes Prince George residents have become complacent when putting away food attractants.
A couple of bear sightings led to an eventful Wednesday in the College Heights neighborhood as four cubs had to be brought down from a tree on O’Grady Road while another bear destroyed somebody’s shed.
Conservation Officers had to put down the mother bear of the four cubs after becoming habituated and Bakker explains how the process is carried out.
“What happens in that event is deemed the bears become more aggressive and more of a threat to public safety and as fir protecting public property and people these animals end up getting destroyed.”
“When bears start to become dependant on these unnatural food sources they become labeled as food conditioned.”
He says reducing your risk of bear sightings starts in the spring.
“What I can’t stress enough is that attractant management has to be consistent it has to begin in April and it must continue right through to November. If you wait to manage your attractants when the bear has already found them, then it’s already too late.”
“I guess the best way to describe it is complacency, everybody waits until it happens and then its already too late.”
Conservation Officer Eamon McCarthur says the death of the mother bear who was with the four cubs is the “fault of the public”.