At least one of the grizzly bears spotted around Nelson over the last week has been relocated before, but the local conservation officer can’t confirm whether it’s one of the animals seen in the city last year.
Jason Hawkes says an ear tag is visible in a photo taken of the bear by a resident last weekend, which means it was captured at some point.
“Whether it’s a bear we dealt with last fall or previous to that, I’m not sure. But it’s most likely one of the four sub-adults translocated from this area,” he says.
Hawkes adds it wouldn’t be that surprising, as bears can travel far. The mother was believed to have wintered in the Camp Busk area, but he’s not sure about the cubs.
“Mostly likely they’re at the age that they would have been pushed away from the sow,” he says.
There have been no further reported sightings of the bears since the Great Northern Railway trail between Mountain Station and Cottonwood Lake was closed this week. It followed two close calls around the Nelson cemetery last weekend: one woman was bluff charged, while a man and his dog were actually chased.
Hawkes says the high snowpack is probably keeping the bears at lower elevation, but he expects they will move on to forage elsewhere for the summer — as long as they aren’t lured by food attractants in Nelson such as garbage, compost, and bird feeders.
“That’s what’s going to cause us grief and conflict,” he says. “There’s a high number of residents in the area with garbage available to bears. They’re going to become food conditioned and habituated, and that’s when you start thinking about public safety.”
Hawkes says it’s unclear how many grizzlies have actually been sighted — it’s a minimum of two, but possibly more.
“It’s pretty tough to say if it’s the same two moving back and forth,” he says. “There’s also one in the Blewett area, and we just had a call of one in Howser, which is a common area for grizzlies.”
He encourages people to phone the conservation service’s RAPP line if they spot a grizzly around town at 1-877-952-7277.
“For those bears, if they’re on the fringes of a community, it’s good to hear about it,” he says. “Any acts of aggression or property damage, we want to hear about. It helps us manage the population and make sound management strategies.”
• The regional district has now extended the closure of the Nelson-Salmo Great Northern trail from Cottonwood Lake to Hall Siding, including the Apex/Busk area until further notice.
