Black bear complaints keep DNR officials busy
Published Saturday July 4th, 2009
Encroachment Suburbs are moving into territory traditionally home to larger omnivores
SAINT JOHN - The man in the Ocean-Westway area thought he heard raccoons rattling through his trash cans. He armed himself with a hockey stick and went outside to chase away the pesky critters.
But what he found in his trash was no raccoon. It was a black bear.
Peter Perry with the Department of Natural Resources in Saint John said Thursday evening's incident was just the latest in some 69 complaints of bears in the Greater Saint John area over the last five weeks.
"We have a bear trap down there," Perry said.
The trap is on Colepitts Avenue.
The raccoons are further complicating the trapping effort because they eat the bottom out of the bait bags left for the bears.
'We have to go re-bait it. We have a staff member running full-tilt."
The traps are made of corrugated steel pipes which are open on one end and sealed on the other. Inside the trap a tasty bag of bait is hung and when the bear enters the trap and goes for the bait, it trips the door and seals it inside.
They've already trapped bears in Welsford and Musquash.
As the suburbs expand farther and farther into what was wilderness, housing encroaches on the black bear's territory. The bears then sniff out easy and tasty meals such as compost piles and containers. The easier the meal, the happier the bear.
Composts bins, said Perry, are an outdoor buffet.
"As long as the compost bins are available, they tend to not go into the trap."
Perry is asking homeowners to take precautions and put compost bins in sheds until emptied.
"They'll take the easy meal. I'm not saying they won't rip the door off a shed, it has happened."
According to Perry, black bear attacks in the province are rare. Eleven years ago, a woman was attacked by a black bear in Titusville when she was carrying a bucket of fish bait.
After the bear was shot, it was discovered that it had a rotted tooth, likely making it more aggressive.
"You want to give a bear its due distance."
Usually the bears will run, but the more brazen ones will just sit and finish its meal as people watch.
"No one is going to outrun a bear so if the bear really wanted to harm anybody, it could catch somebody very quickly."
Grand Bay-Westfield, the Ocean-Westway area and Welsford, said Perry, are perennial bear problem spots.
"It will continue because we have so much interface, buildings that are built right on the fringe of wooded areas and have a quite a vast area of woods in behind these homes or subdivisions."
If confronted by a bear, don't play dead.
"Shout, yell, make sure he knows you're there and back away."
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