The spring brings sunshine, beautiful bloom of flowers, plants, berries and of course, the majestic black bear awake to enjoy them.
Revelstoke has made national news the past several years, and not necessarily for the all the right reasons. One of those, was due to the controversial bear shooting that took place downtown Revelstoke which cause an uproar, forcing picketers to stand outside City Hall in hopes for a voice.
This past year it has been relatively quiet in terms of destroyed bears. In a recent letter to Mayor and Council, the Revelstoke Bear aware indicated that 88 reports were made to the local faction and 65 reports made to the conservation office service. In 2017, only four black bears were destroyed by Conservation Officers, a drastic decrease from 2016.
“2016 was the year of the controversy with 24 bears destroyed; this past year was down to four. I think because of this, people were far more conscious of what is happening. The goal for 2018 is to have locals register their fruit trees, where volunteers will come and harvest trees to alleviate that issue. CSRD is looking into an organic waste system of some kind, where they will collect all the organic waste, which is nice that they are looking at solutions.” Bear Aware Coordinator, Maggie Spizzirri told the Revelstoke Current.
Garbage continues to be the number one concern in terms of bears making their way into the downtown core. a close second is fruit and nut trees in citizens yards that are not harvested and make for a delightful feast for our furry friends.
For those that continue disregard the rules, the City passed a By-Law (2178) in which they can clean up and remove any attractants and charge the homeowner/landowner for the cost. Failure to comply with payment will result in the cost being added to the owners property taxes on the next billing cycle.
The Revelstoke Bear aware is a Not-For-Profit organization in which over 43 volunteers dedicated 107 hours to the cause in 2017.
