I was born and raised in this city almost 70 years ago. I have always been proud of it. No longer.
One of my first memories was watching the bears at the local garbage dump. Right here in the Bowl. Yes, people, some of you are living on a dump.
Year after year, the city kills bears. Our city has been publicly shamed because of our inability to manage bear and human conflict.
We live on two rivers and seem proud of this but we continue to fail to provide wildlife corridors. Seems basic but no, we allow over five acres to be clearcut over in Heritage, right at the river. And let’s not get into the development down on the Fraser River. And again, no wildlife corridor.
We have a huge messy loud railroad, a massive dump of old wood and broken cement, and still no wildlife corridor.
People love their flowering trees but are too busy to harvest the fruit. When bears are desperate for food and their natural habitat has been destroyed, they come looking and we sure do deliver. Apples, chokecherries, garbage cans and death. Congratulations.
And please don’t start blaming the conservation officers. There are so few of them and they absolutely do not kill bears by choice. Their decisions are dictated by policy and by cranky citizens. It must be heartbreaking killing beautiful healthy animals. They should be out monitoring hunters, not fruit trees and garbage bins.
Year after year, a small group of people at Northern Bear Awareness has tried to work with an uncaring and unresponsive city to reduce this conflict and year after year the city give nothing but lip service.
Kelly Enemark
Prince George
