Pick your apples, Jasper, or you might just kill a bear.
According to John Wilmshurst, resource conservation manager for Jasper National Park, unless residents take proper care of their fruit and vegetable plants, stray bears that wander into town could end up being “destroyed.”
At this time of year most bears have already headed into alpine zones, further away from town, to forage for berries. However, because it’s getting colder all the time, early frost is killing the berries they’re after.
With little more than six weeks left until they hibernate, and a lot of fat to pack on before their winter naps, bears sometimes snoop around Jasper looking for grub.
“They want to lay some fat on before the winter and they’re looking for absolutely any opportunity to do that,” said Wilmshurst. So it is especially important for Jasper residents to diligently clean up after themselves.
Everyone should be familiar with how and why to keep organics locked down, but Wilmshurst said it’s also very important to harvest fruit immediately after it ripens.
You see, bears love fruit, so when berries ripen they make up almost 100 per cent of their diets.
“In fact, if you look at a bear’s scat it will look like a blueberry pie,” he said, “you can see all the different kinds of berries in there.”
And all the fruit trees and bushes scattered throughout Jasper, if not properly harvested, are a major temptation for the bears.
Last year, Parks had to kill a bear that took up residence in town and couldn’t be forced out. The same thing might happen this year too; the Human and Wildlife Conflict Team is monitoring a bear that has been circling town for most of the season.
And that is no easy task, either.
Tracking, collaring, monitoring, record-keeping and hazing bears creates “hundreds of hours” of work for the team.
“It takes a huge amount of time for us to manage animals like that,” he said.
If everyone, local businesses included, keeps their organic waste in the proper bins and harvests their fruit, there will be no incentive for bears to come into town, saving the team all kinds of work and saving animals from possible death.
“People have to remember that they live in Jasper, it’s an area set aside for wildlife and so we have to bias our management decisions to benefit the wildlife,” reminded Wilmshurst.
Trevor Nicols
[email protected]
