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The Vanished Bears of Cumberland

Last fall, bruins invaded. Many were killed. This year none showed.

By Grant Shilling, 5 Oct 2005, TheTyee.ca

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Last September, the tiny village of Cumberland on Vancouver Island turned into an all-you-can-eat buffet for black bears. At times, close to thirty bears could be seen roaming like big black buddahs around the town of 2,700.

As this September came to close, however, not a single bear had been sighted in Cumberland.

A small part of the black bear problem is Cumberland's location - the town is surrounded on three sides by wilderness (including Strathcona Provincial Park to the west) and forms part of the black bear migratory route. The ravenous bears descend from the high country around Cumberland (which backs onto the magnificent Beaufort Range) and converge on the nearby Courtenay and Puntledge Rivers.

"Bears are very hungry in the fall as they bulk up," says Dan Dwyer the senior conservation officer for the Comox Valley. "Last year there was no rain. No rain means no berries so the bears start roaming and come down into the valley looking for food elsewhere."

Elsewhere was Cumberland. Garbage left at the curb well before garbage day pick up was one yummy dish, another fine course on the bears make-like-Yogi menu, was fruit. Most houses in the historic coal mining and logging town have well-established fruit trees, grown by families with many generations here. Not only are the trees full of fruit, but the ground is covered in apples, pears and plums. There are also many deserted orchards around town that haven't been tended for years that the bears frequent.

Black bears lived under fruit trees for days in a Bacchanalian reverie.

A love, then hate, relationship

"The people of Cumberland, at first, were extremely tolerant of the bears - in fact to a degree I think they enjoyed their presence," says Dwyer.

My neighbour Ralph remembers talking to a bear that was sprawled in front of his house drunk on fermented fruit. "He was perfectly harmless," chuckles Ralph.

It wasn't long before the warm and fuzzy Marlin Perkins' Wild Kingdom feeling faded and problems started to arise.

"It was like an invasion of rats," said another neighbour who'd had enough.

Bears started trying to get their paws into houses through cat doors to get at garbage stored in laundry rooms and others began ripping apart sheds to get at garbage. Some teenagers began taunting and teasing the docile bears.

Soon enough, the conservation officers were called in. Cumberlanders were divided about what they wanted done with the bears, some wanted the conservation officers to get rid of the bears; others wanted the bears to be left alone. The numerous mediations the conservation officers had to perform led them to be dubbed 'conversation officers' by one local wag.

Actually, there wasn't much the conservation officers could do. "Once bears become habituated to an area, they always come back," say Dwyer. "It's a means of survival. A bear never forgets where it finds food." The town of Cumberland made it easy with its tempting rows of garbage. The only solution is a final one.

At least 19 destroyed

Last year, 19 bears in Cumberland were officially destroyed (some sources estimate up to 48 bears killed).

"It's disturbing the number of bears that had to be destroyed," says Dwyer. "No conservation officer likes to see animals killed, but it becomes an issue of public safety."

Dwyer says that many of the bears were in 'poor condition' with broken teeth and scaring usually associated with dump bears and therefore not candidates for relocation.

Last year, an electric fence was installed around the local dump. "Landfill sites become a sinkhole for bears," says Dwyer. "Some bears have lived there for generations."

Four dump bears were tagged before the fence went up. One tagged bear was destroyed -so it is inconclusive whether most of the bears destroyed were dump bears or hungry wild bears. This year, Cumberland residents have been encouraged to take preventive action through Bear Aware, an educational program designed to prevent and reduce conflicts between people and bears.

Ken McLure is the village of Cumberland's manager of protective services and its Bear Aware officer. His appointment is through the provincial ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection and BC Conservation Foundation.

McLure has installed four big bear-proof dumpsters where residents can put their garbage and rotten fruit if they don't have a bear-proof storage area. McLure says he is amazed at how well people have responded to the program. "The dumpsters are full of rotten fruit. People here are buying into the program. People have changed the way they store their garbage. They have done a wonderful job."

People have also been trained in how to prune trees -to reduce fruit production (which seems counterintuitive) and fruit is also being collected by a volunteer force for the local food bank. McLure has also initiated a shorter garbage pick up day-eight am until noon-to reduce the time garbage is at the curb. No longer are residents placing their garbage out the night before pick up, they wait until morning.

Bears gone missing

This year has seen plenty of rain and produced a bumper berry crop. So why no bears spotted yet in Cumberland this fall?

Is it because people here have become expertly bear aware? Or is it that with so many bears killed last year, the bears aren't there?

"Oh, the bears are there," says McLure. "I see bears all over the back country, they just aren't coming into the community."

"Have the bears disappeared because so many were destroyed last year? That's an interesting question," said Dwyer. "I'm not sure it can be answered conclusively. These things [bear encroachment into urban areas] come in cycles depending on things such as rainfall."

I decided to do be my own best cub reporter heading up into the high country around Cumberland on my mountain bike.

I hung out in a clearcut for a long time (sadly Cumberland is surrounded by them). Older clearcuts often create spaces for berries to grow and black bears will frequent them.

No bears.

I spent time in the forest canopy and down by the Puntledge River and several creeks.

No bears.

I go into town and ask at Dodge City Cycles and the Riding Fool Hostel the hq and sleeping barracks respectively for the mountain biking masses. Have any bikers seen bears while peddling up in the high country?

No bears.

The bears are there?

"The bears will come," says a friend.

I'll let you know.

Grant Shilling is the author of The Cedar Surf: An Informal History of Surfing in British Columbia. [Tyee]

Grant Shilling is the author of The Cedar Surf: An Informal History of Surfing in British Columbia, from New Star Books. He is also a community health worker for the Vancouver Island Health Authority.

19 Comments:

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  • Colin

    6 years ago

    Comments on "The Vanished Bears of Cumberland"

    I travelled all over the North this summer and the number of bears that you see by the roadside is down. All the people I talked to that work in the bush, tell me that there are lot’s of bears out there, but that the berry crop is quite big this year. Did see 5 bears last week on the road from Iskut to Mezeadin Junction.

    Relocation is rarely an option for most black bears as most suitable habitat is already claimed by other bears, so all you do is create conflict and stress for more bears.

  • Ron Erwin

    6 years ago

    Obviously this is yet another example of the negative footprint of man. I am sure there are scientists that will blame global warming for this terrible decline in bears population.
    We should just pack up and vacate this island so our negative influence will disappear.
    Or is this just an anomaly of the moment?
    I think so.

  • ursus

    6 years ago

    they shot 48 cinnamon bears in Stuart one year, according to locals I was there for a week in 95 and watched rcmp officer shoot one right in the campground, it was an eye opener for some of the tourists in their land yachts.

    The people who left their garbage out beside their campsite and drove off probably didn't even know that their action caused a young cinnamon bear to be shot. I wanted to go after them and tell them but my wifes cooler head prevailed, which is probably a good thing.

    The cop didn't want his picture taken and I would think he was tired of killing bears eating garbage left by tourists to lazy to walk 20 feet in their case to the dumpster.

    Maybe when the bears are gone the ronny irwins will be able to say I told you so or it must have been an anomaly of the moment, jeez you should stick your head back in the sand where it belongs.

  • skeptikool

    6 years ago

    The human can find so many reasons to kill.

    If a tenders were put out to cull the animals, there would be those that would pay for the joy of pulling the trigger.

    Talk of options is often as phony as G.W.Bush's reluctance to invade and occupy Iraq and, just with the bears, you first demonize the targets.

  • scylla

    6 years ago

    No "demonisation" in this case, skep. Unlike geese, which merely present a nuisance, black bears can and have killed people.

    Certainly our attitude toward wildlife has previously been marked by uncaring intolerance, but almost invariably the "kindness" which leads to their habituation also leads to their death in a variety of ways.

  • willy

    6 years ago

    In the U.S. Glacier Park they have a program of making it nasty for problem bears. They use noise, rubberbullets and sometimes dogs to put the run on bears, griz and black. This program from what I have read is very successful. Why is it not tried here. These bears rarely came back and if they do, after a second dose they aren't seen again. It was found when a bear was given this treatment and it was seen near the problem area, one sound of the horn, it was gone at a run.

  • tommymoore

    6 years ago

    I remember one spring in Smanit Creek, halfway up Jervis Inlet, we shot 14 bears right outside the cookhouse. An habituated (and hungry) bear cannot be scared off - they just keep coming back. In berry season, we often had to stop the rigging, shut down our yarding, while momma and cubs sauntered through the setting. The grizzlies on the Philips River, just below the lake, were a bit scary. Some Sundays our afternoon steelhead derby was interrupted. Although heavily armed, none of us considered staying at the gravel bar. We always gave bears lots of leeway, and rarely had any trouble with them.

  • Colin

    6 years ago

    commentor: skeptikool
    posted: 18 Hours Ago
    The human can find so many reasons to kill.

    If a tenders were put out to cull the animals, there would be those that would pay for the joy of pulling the trigger.

    Talk of options is often as phony as G.W.Bush's reluctance to invade and occupy Iraq and, just with the bears, you first demonize the targets.
    Bears also kill, each other and anything they consider worthy prey that won’t cause them injury, that means that you to are part of the food chain.

    What a laugh, now our bear problems are all part of Bush’s devious plan. (insert evil laughter)

  • Colin

    6 years ago

    arrgh!!!!!!!
    I hate the way this site bunch's things up.

    my statment:
    Bears also kill, each other and anything they consider worthy prey that won’t cause them injury, that means that you to are part of the food chain.

  • skeptikool

    6 years ago

    Colin,

    Quote:
    Bears also kill, each other and anything they consider worthy prey that won’t cause them injury, that means that you to are part of the food chain.

    What a laugh, now our bear problems are all part of Bush’s devious plan. (insert evil laughter)

    I'm flattered, but if you're going to quote me,
    please do so correctly. I will accept your convoluted reasoning on my analogy, but please don't have what you said attached to what I said.

  • skeptikool

    6 years ago

    Colin,

    Gotcha, Missed your last post.

  • Colin

    6 years ago

    skeptikool

    Sorry for any confusion, this site does need a bit of tweaking, a quote function would be nice.

    To the Moderator: hint, hint

  • skeptikool

    6 years ago

    Colin,

    You have a quote function. Just highlight what you want to quote; then left-click the last symbol above.

  • Thuja

    6 years ago

    This August I hiked up to Mt.Beecher and came across bear scat once. Also I hiked in the Comox Lake area 3 days and saw no bear sign at all. I picked mountain huckleberries for a few days in the Mt. Washington area and saw no bear sign which I thought unusual as in previous years I would always come across bear sign or see bears.

    The true number of bears killed annually is always higher than the official tallied results.

  • BC Mary

    6 years ago

    Willy's post reminded me of a friend, long ago, who went out into the woods with his dog.

    The dog, of course, ran ahead, hoovering up all the good smells. The dog actually discovered a bear! Yippee! Yap, yap, yap ... and yowp!!

    Bears don't usually tolerate fat little downtown dogs ordering them off their own territory. Bears usually put the run on the dog. As did this one. And you know what happened ...

    The dog turned tail and made a bee-line for the human. Ran right between his legs and crouched down behind him, shivering. Tense moments.

    Lesson learned: dogs are not good protection from bears.

  • Colin

    6 years ago

    BC Mary

    Actually that is not true, certain dogs are good protection from bears. But you must decide what sort of protection you want. Some dogs are good for defence of your property, while other dogs (Northern Breeds) are good for traveling bear defence. Sheldon in his book “Bear Attacks, Myth and Realities II” has a good chapter on the pro’s & con’s of using dogs and what type of dogs to use.

    Many of the forest workers take dogs into the bush and there are many stories of dogs defending their owners and saving them from bear attacks.

  • willy

    6 years ago

    In Glacier national Park on the U.S. side after a dose of noise, rubber bullets and a certain breed of dog the bears did not come back. The odd bear did try for the food souce a second time but after a second treatment it was gone even with the food source still out. The dog breed was a Karelian Bear Dog. What I saw on TV was a test with a food source. They mentioned after the testing this program would be used.

  • goatdancer

    6 years ago

    ursus

    'jeez you should stick your head back in the sand where it belongs.' I think you are so polite for using 'sand'.

    Bears are wild, unpredictable animals. Anyone who thinks that they can teach all wild bears to behave themselves and do what we humans want them to do is highly delusional. Unfortunately, wildlife-human interactions lead to the destruction of the wildlife. Sometimes those who cry the loudest about all the 'wanton' killing are the first to call the police or conservation officers.

  • TonyGuitar

    6 years ago

    Willy [6th from top], has the correct recipie for the bear problem. Bears hate air horns.

    Air horns on a compressed air cannister as you often see at football games can really deter a bear. B.C. Mary also brings your attention to Willy's constructive methods.

    As an ex-resident and property manager in and of Cumberland, I should have some insight about this story and I do. Mostly because I had an *unofficial* cabin up in the Beaufort mountains out behind Cumberland.

    Mornings at about 5 to 6 am I could often hear a bear sniffing outside. Bears were always very civil to me. I usually turned my body slowly sideways as I have seen them do so often. Gives a message of, * it's OK I will ignore you*.

    Food in my cabin was always in closed containers and plastic jars. No bear ever attempted to get in, yet I was a stop on their rounds almost every day.

    Once two bear were near my door when I opened up and one guy had only one eye. He looked as though life was a bit rough for him. He gave me a knowing look out of his good eye and moved along with his friend.

    I thought these two were Cumberland regulars because they moved on lazily, not at a trot like my other visiting bears.

    The shooting of 48 bear sounds more like frustration of conservation emplyees due to lack of funding rather than conservation.

    Also, I heard that in the area, the taking of bear for parts like paws and gallbladders was fairly common. I'm not able to authenticate that however.

    So the answer to the missing bear of Cumberland is in Grant's article. Those bear with the food source memory in Cumberland were all shot. So until other roaming bear re-discover Cumberland, there are likely to be few sightings. 73s TG

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