By David F. Rooney
If you live outside town have fruit trees, gardens, bee hives, lambs and chickens living with bears and other predators can sometimes be difficult.
Just ask Andy Parkin. He used to raise lambs but gave it up because he “got tired of feeding the cougars.” Most recently, a bear decided to chow down on several of the chickens he was raising for their meat and eggs.
“He was obviously a breast man,” he said Thursday. “There wasn’t a lot left… just a few wings and a lot of feathers.”
Parkin and his wife Marilyn were just two of the 16 people who turned out at a Bear Aware workshop to ponder the potential of electric fencing as a bear deterrent.
The workshop was organized by Bear Aware Coordinator Janette Vickers and featured Kaslo Bear Smart Coordinator Gillian Sanders.
Sanders said she began using an electric fence to protect her bee hives about 16 years ago. After she helped start up Kaslo’s Bear Smart Program she began encouraging people to try electric fences to keep their chickens, goats, lambs and crops safe from bears.
The fences don’t harm the animals but they will zap them good. For more information please contact Revelstoke Bear Aware Coordinator Janette Vickers at 250-837-8624. You can also send her an e-mail at beaware@telus.net. The Revelstoke Bear Aware Program website is at www.revelstokebearaware.org.
Here are a few images from the workshop:
