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Bear destroyed after break-in

Young male bear pays the ultimate price for entering same home
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DEADLY HABITS

The latest incident leading to the destruction of the second bear this season in Whistler is a story Sylvia Dolson has heard before — and doesn't want to hear again.

The executive director of the Get Bear Smart Society is encouraging Whistler residents to be vigilant about keeping doors and windows closed after a bear snuck into a home in the 6100-block of Eagle Drive in Whistler Cay on Sunday, Sept. 29.

"The one conclusion we can draw from this is that people must keep their doors and windows closed and locked," said Dolson.

It happened during an innocent chore that residents do all the time — carrying goods between the home and the car. Like most, the homeowner left her house door open as she carried the bags back and forth, a distance of just 20 metres.

Yet the bear was able to slip into the home completely undetected in less than 30 seconds.

"(Even) If you're ferrying groceries in from the car you still have to close the door behind you," said Dolson.

It wasn't the first time the bear had broken into that home. Soon after it left the care of its mother earlier this season it found its way in. Conservation officer Tim Schumacher said the young male was relocated following the incident in June, but returned to the resort.

There were some concerns about the success of the relocation since it had been shipped out of the resort in the summer of 2012 as a cub with its two siblings and its mother after the sow got into another home.

"They were accessing an unoccupied home, the resident wasn't home for five weeks," Schumacher said of the behaviour of the bear family in 2012. "Before that they were in White Gold where they (also) accessed a home."

Schumacher said a yearling bear is still fairly small at the time it separates from its mother, so the young guy wasn't deemed a safety risk after the initial break-in.

"This time when it went into the home it was much larger," said Schumacher. "It was not that much smaller than an adult bear. (Bears) put on a lot of weight over the summer and given that it was such a good year the bear was unrecognizable to me as the same bear."

According to Schumacher, things got tense because the bear was trapped inside the Whistler Cay home after the resident came back into the house after putting items in her vehicle.

"She came back in and saw the bear out of the corner of her eye in the kitchen," Schumacher said. "She was in the direct escape path of the bear. The bear came towards her, knocked her over and realized the door was closed."

The police report suggests that the bear stood on its hind legs and put its paws on the woman's shoulders to push her over.

The resident wasn't hurt and was able to flee into a bedroom. The bear tried to climb to the second floor to find a way out, but another resident in the home prevented the bear from getting up the stairs.

"He threw something at it, made himself look big, yelled and screamed, and the bear went back towards the door where it originally entered," said Schumacher.

The bear ripped away at the bottom of the door, which was now closed, and broke the window beside the door. The bear escaped through the broken window.

Schumacher said he arrived with the police soon after. An RCMP member saw the bear exit the house and climb a nearby tree.

"It remembered exactly where it got that food source last time, and it just goes to show that even though they're young when they do grow up they remember that food source," said Schumacher. "It went back to the same home, the same door, the same kitchen."

The incident on Sunday ended a long streak without bear complaints in Whistler.

On Monday, Sept. 30, Schumacher dealt with another complaint of another bear getting into garbage.

"Not good when we're supposed to be a Bear Smart community and bears are still accessing garbage in our community," said Schumacher.

Food sources at higher elevations are depleted now so the bears living around Whistler are looking to low-elevation food sources now.

"It's a super important time of year to keep food attractants secure, secure all recycling, secure bird feeders and all that kind of stuff and make sure your homes aren't accessible to bears," said Schumacher.

The Get Bear Smart Society website (www.bearsmart.com) has lots of information about how to prevent bears from being destroyed by ensuring there's no food available to them in populated areas. The society notes that compost bins, pet food stored outside, dirty barbecues, garbage, fruit trees, berry bushes and gardens can all be attractive to hungry bears. The society also encourages the use of noisemakers, flares and pepper spray to keep aggressive bears out of backyards and Whistler neighbourhoods.

In August, after Dolson learned that the Conservation Officer Service was investigating allegations that a Whistler resident was providing food for bears, she said that it is best if bears are kept wild and their encounters with humans are consistently negative.

"They need to be passing through," she said. "It's OK for bears to pass through but when they stop and start getting in trouble with people that's the beginning of the end.

"If every single person at every house went outside and chased a bear off and banged on pots and pans all the time there would be no opportunity for the bear to become habituated or food conditioned," Dolson said.