It’s now getting to the time of the year when local black bears are waking up from hibernation and looking for food.
Conservation Officer Dave Webster said that in the spring, it’s important for people to know what attracts bears and how to manage them.
“They come out in springtime, they’re actively looking for food and people need to be aware of their attractants and how to manage them; things such as garbage, pet food and other things like that,” Webster said.
He said they hadn’t received many complaints yet because of the late spring weather, which he says has kept them at bay a little bit longer.
“Depending on how the natural food sources develop in the springtime we either have very few calls, if there are good natural food sources. If we don’t have good natural food sources, then we’ll get complaints everywhere throughout the local West Kootenays,” Webster said.
“The municipalities will have trouble, the local ranchers will have trouble with losing livestock, things like that.”
Webster said they would be watching most areas, not just Christina Lake to see how the bears are acting in the early spring.
“Whether it be bears that are already habituated to food or bears that are just coming out and are naturally hungry,” he said. “We want to keep close tabs on all those bears.”
He added that the chances for the bears that have been fed is not something he can predict and is up to the bears themselves.
“If they’ve become too accustomed to natural food, then they’re going to try to find it somewhere,” he said. “So we’re just going to have to wait and see on that front.”
He said that currently there is a full complement of black bears in the area and they will soon be roaming around.
“There’s still a fair bit of snow in a lot of areas, but any time now, we’ll start to see them for sure.”