Yesterday morning I let the dog out in our backyard and found the pole with my birdfeeders on the ground and my feeders basically destroyed. Then as I went around to the front of the house down the driveway to take Eco for a walk, for the first time in my life, I found the contents of my garbage can strewn across my front yard - something had dragged it about 10' feet from where it was. I don't like picking up my garbage from my lawn. But my garbage can was not the only one of interest - during our walk I saw about 8 cans turned over with the contents scattered over people's lawns or the street.
Later in the day, I smelled something fishy in the yard and as I followed my nose, I peered over a neighbour's fence to find that young black bear having a lounge along their fence. He was about as surprised about me as I was about him. I called Wildlife Canada but they didn't care. Even though we are a block away from an elementary school it, they didn't care. The RCMP will only do something if the bear is actively threatening someone.
After alerting the neighbours, he was seen a couple more times later in the day. I spoke with a lady is is managing the Bear Aware program and she happened to be at our school earlier in the day to talk to the kids about bears in the neighbourhood! She said she'd be coming door to door in our neighbourhood to talk to people about this bear. She figured that because he's so comfortable around us (not only by lounging amongst us, but being out during the day), that he would most likely have to be killed before the end of summer.
So no more birdfeeders for me. I will miss my sweet little companions. I will have to leave the feeding to people who can hang the feeders off their balconies of their two story houses. As well, we'll have to find a way to keep our garbage in the house until the morning of garbage day. Did you know there is a by-law about putting your garbage out the night before? I guess many people don't know that because I've seen lots of people putting their garbage out the night before.
And after I was sure the bear was no longer in the neighbouring yards, I continued to search for the bad smell. I found the source - a poor animal that crawled under my shed to die. I will try to throw some dirt on it, but in the mean time, I will not be spending too much time outside - good thing it's cold and crappy weather!
Edited: First, he WAS still in the neighbouring yard - he was sleeping in a tree in the yard beside me, I couldn't see him, but my neighbours could and then, he was in my front yard last night around 11pm, about 8 feet from my front door - eeep!
What a day!
5 comments:
Yikes! that's crazy!! We'll keep an eye out for them, we haven't had any over here but we aren't as close to any major bushy areas for bears to come from. Eep!
well there was garbage torn apart on your street as well so just be careful.
Oh no really! Yikes!
When I was in Prince Rupert last week, it was funny to see signs in store windows for bear spray. No something we worry about in Toronto.
Teena do you have any 'wild' animals where you live? Raccoons? The people around Prince Rupert are probably much more accustomed to bears than we are, and if we don't stop providing him something to eat, he's not going to live past this summer which is very sad.
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