Just one black bear was destroyed by conservation officers within Nelson’s city limits in 2023 after 17 were killed the previous year, which prompted public outrage and calls for policy changes.
Conservation officer Nathan Smienk said the bear had fallen out of a tree and broken its back. Bears are only destroyed by conservation officers if they are sick or injured, are aggressive with people or causing property damage.
Bear deaths were also down in the rural area surrounding Nelson. Smienk said eight were destroyed in the area from the Junction, which is between Nelson and Castlegar, to Trout Lake located north of Nakusp.
Freedom of information requests made last year by The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals as well as Nelson-based nonprofit The Ursa Project revealed Nelson had the second most black bears destroyed out of any B.C. municipality, with 17 killed inside city limits. A total of 21 were also killed in the rural area around Nelson that includes Taghum to Queen’s Bay.
Katie Graves with The Ursa Project said the community’s reaction to the number of bears being killed likely played a part in the reversal. Her group also worked to educate residents and businesses about how their unsecured garbage and unpicked fruit trees are attractants.
“I don’t like putting out fires all the time. But as you chip away at all these fires, eventually you have a community that is doing a better job at securing its attractants and tightening up their bear smart practices.”
Chris Johnson, the City of Nelson’s general manager of community planning, said the city worked to install bear bins in all of its parks in 2023, an initiative that is nearly complete.
He said downtown garbage bins, which are not bear-proof, are emptied once or twice per day and more frequently during the summer, and that the introduction of the FoodCycler pilot program in the Fairview neighbourhood meant to cut down on organic waste may have also played a part.
Mayor Janice Morrison meanwhile said in June the Waste Management and Wildlife Attractant Bylaw would be more thoroughly enforced by bylaw officers. The city issued 18 tickets under the bylaw last year for a total of $3,700 in fines.
The city also opted to close Gyro Park to the public for about a month in October and November when it became frequented by a mother black bear with four cubs.
Johnson said that decision was a recommendation made by conservation officers and WildSafeBC’s local co-ordinator. The bears were monitored and expected to den in the park.
There was little public resistance to closing the park, Johnson said. He thinks residents deserve credit for keeping bears safe.
“It’s front of mind for folks when they’re considering whether they leave attractants in their trees in their yard or when they put out their garbage.”
The Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship declined to make a local biologist available for an interview. A spokesperson said they don’t have data to show why fewer bears were destroyed in 2023 compared to 2022. “Bear euthanization numbers tend to be cyclical, which means trends and causation are difficult to determine based on annual data.”
Graves thinks more can be done. She’s critical of the FoodCycler program and said drop-off locations for the soil amendment, which is also an attractant, are often messy. She’d also prefer to see bear resistant bins installed throughout the downtown core.
“It’s kind of heartbreaking to think that the amount of money that’s being spent on [FoodCyclers], where we could have bear-resistant cans for every resident in this town.”
At least one bear already destroyed in Nelson in 2024
A small female black bear that had been seen roaming the city in recent months and had caught residents’ attention on social media has been destroyed by conservation officers.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy confirmed the two-year-old bear was put down.
The bear was not a risk to public safety, but assessed by a biologist to be in poor health, according to the spokesperson.
“We understand people are passionate about wildlife and this is an unfortunate outcome. We appreciate the concern for the welfare of bears in B.C.”
In a statement posted to Facebook, The Ursa Project criticized the death as unnecessary. The society said the bear was not examined in person by the biologist.
“If this bear had been properly evaluated in person and was truly deemed to be suffering without hope of recovery, we would be the first to say that euthanasia would absolutely be the ethical and kindest thing to do.
“Instead, without a veterinarian (which we have in town and has expertise in bear biology) looking at her body, and without seeking out a true professional medical assessment, they chose to end her life. If her suffering due to lack of body fat and fur was truly the reason that they killed her, why was it only after this bear endured weeks of extremely cold weather that this suddenly became a concern?”
Conservation officers can be contacted about local bears through the Report All Poachers and Polluters (RAPP) line at 1-877-952-7277.
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