Erica Van Loon grew up in grizzly territory. Her family’s farm, Pemberton Valley Farms (PVF), sits at the northern end of the Pemberton Meadows—a critical habitat for grizzly bears.
“We had them coming through our farm every season from that I can remember,” said Van Loon. “So they've always been a key part of my life here.”
PVF grows a variety of fresh produce, but it’s their carrots that provided a particularly attractive target for grizzlies.
“There [are] a number of farmers here [who] grow carrots and our crops were getting, not all taken out, but, you know, five per cent, 10 percent of the crops were getting eaten by grizzly bears,” Van Loon recalled. “Electric fencing was and is such a great coexistence tool to mitigate that interaction.”
Reinforcing healthy habits
Now, Van Loon works with Coast to Cascades Grizzly Bear Initiative (C2C). In 2022, C2C partnered with the Grizzly Bear Foundation to cover half of the cost of new electric fencing installations aimed at keeping grizzlies away from attractants, thereby reducing conflict between the bears and humans.
In the first year, the program focused on the upper north area of the Pemberton Meadows—“where the Hurley meets the pavement,” said Van Loon.
“That’s one of our central areas and a key zone for grizzly bear movement. So between there and just a bit north of the Beer Farmers was our key starting-off zone.”
This year, the non-profit is expanding the cost-sharing program to residents of the Pemberton Valley, Upper Bridge River Valley and Portage Road—including Mount Currie, D’Arcy and Seton—in collaboration with Margo Supplies Ltd.
The expansion comes courtesy of grant funding and financing from the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District. The new areas included in the program were determined using bear hazard assessments (BHA), which see a registered professional biologist look at the risks of potential conflict between bears and people.
“Because we have limited funds, we unfortunately can't expand to the whole town of Pemberton,” said Van Loon. “We do have to be quite specific in the areas we're looking at, and what's really going to have the most impact on positive grizzly bear human coexistence.”
Sonia Nicholl, C2C’s bear response specialist, noted that electric fencing is intended to limit bears’ access to attractants—including carrots, fruit trees and gardens, human food sources like garbage and barbecues, and livestock that can activate grizzlies’ prey drive—while also teaching bears where they can and can’t go.
“If grizzlies don't learn that something's a food source, then they won't really look for it or investigate it,” said Nicholl.
“There's a bunch of different ways to kind of mitigate, but from the ‘teaching bears’ point of view, electric fencing is actually one of the best types of deterrents, because it’s immediate and consistent enough for the bears to be able to understand the association of what's not good.”
Electric fencing for grizzly bears is different from livestock fencing; livestock fencing tends to be too fragile, have insufficient voltage to act as a deterrent and is often too spaced out to prevent a bear from poking their nose in.
C2C’s cost-sharing program is paired with site assessments, which examine properties to establish key no-go zones for grizzlies that could be fenced off, including human and livestock structures, crops or personal gardens. They also establish routes to haze bears off a property, should the need arise.
C2C has installed 19 electric fences to date, covering more than 30 acres of land—including some of the Valley’s larger carrot fields.
“There's still a lot more for us to do, obviously, but we've had some great support in the Pemberton Meadows and Portage Road area of interest in the program. So it's really great to see and hopefully lots more to come this year.”
The 2025 fencing project will run until bears start their hibernation in October.
Coexistence between growing populations
Pemberton’s endangered grizzly population has been on the rebound thanks to concerted efforts from conservation groups. C2C’s BHA measures are an effort to continue that recovery.
Pemberton is surrounded by five distinct grizzly bear populations. C2C is particularly focused on the critically endangered Stein-Nahatlatch population, whose isolation from other bear populations has limited its genetic diversity. Only a few breeding females remain to sustain the population.
“As we go over decades of a very slow transition of reproduction and this recovery, we are seeing the population slowly increase—which is great—but now we're encountering what that looks like as they come into human-dominated landscapes,” said Van Loon. “There's so many more threats to humans and bears—aside from all of the natural threats going on, climate change and paired with habitat degradation, resource extraction, all of those things.”
“So on the people side, as the bears come into areas like Pemberton, the question is, ‘What can we do to make sure humans are doing their part and we aren't turning that process backwards even more?’”
C2C’s website offers a lengthy list of resources for people looking to learn more about how to coexist with grizzlies—from webinars and videos to books and research papers. Nicholl also suggested looking to WildSafeBC, which provides safety information and tips for reducing conflict with grizzlies and other species.
C2C also recommends residents check out Stewardship Pemberton Society’s Fruit Tree Project, which aims to reduce food waste and conflict with wildlife by harvesting fruit for free. Fruit tree owners can sign up for the program on SPS’ website.
C2C is also hosting a free webinar in partnership with the U.S.-based Blackfoot Challenge. Ranchers, government officials and conservationists will “share real-world stories, challenges and solutions from their decades of experience coexisting with grizzly bears [. . .] in an agricultural landscape.” The free webinar is accessible through C2C’s website.
Van Loon said the goal of electric fencing, fruit-tree harvesting and the educational resources is to avoid a “shoot, shovel and shut up” approach to grizzly bear management.
Between those methods of teaching bears where they can and can’t go and keeping attractants penned in, Nicholl said that people are having fewer negative interactions with the bears.
“With having a lot of those attractants fenced, you know, the bears aren't sort of causing as much problems for people. And I think, yeah, it does seem like people are kind of getting a bit more of experience, and tolerance goes up with that.”
Van Loon said it might require a generational shift, but it’s something that’s worth fighting for to keep grizzlies and humans alike safe as both populations grow.
“The onus cannot be on bears entirely,” she said. “We do have a human responsibility, as people who are so lucky to live in this amazing landscape, to coexist with those that have been here long, long before us.”
To learn more or sign up for the fencing project, contact C2C at [email protected]
