12 bears killed by wildlife officers in Northern Alberta

Cree Nations

http://communities.canada.com/edmontonj ... 44213.aspx\

Are you kidding me?

Drowned Out

:(
Brutal.
As one of the comments under the article mention.....there is a HUGE uproar over the youtube'd duck-poaching in Saskatchewan last week....but it's ok for government officials to do this? what a fucking joke.

Get_Right

cull means it was done for a reason
any idea what that might be?

Cree Nations

its in the article, basically the bears were eating garbage at a well knonw and unfenced dump that the local government and fish and wildlife had known about for years but instead of building a fence and relocating them, they thought it best to "cull" them

CJMST3K

Cree Nations wrote:

its in the article, basically the bears were eating garbage at a well knonw and unfenced dump that the local government and fish and wildlife had known about for years but instead of building a fence and relocating them, they thought it best to "cull" them

I would very much enjoy if I heard in the news that the officers were culled.

Thorns2010

Cree Nations wrote:

its in the article, basically the bears were eating garbage at a well knonw and unfenced dump that the local government and fish and wildlife had known about for years but instead of building a fence and relocating them, they thought it best to "cull" them

Article?? What article? All I see is a blog with one sentence.

While I'm not a fan a killing animals for no good reason, I just don't feel what I have been presented with here is suitable enough to create an informed decision on the matter.

Unless I am mistaken, and there is more to this link then I'm noticing.

Cree Nations

edit: sorry the link was fully there an hour ago but I think because of the amount of blog response on the journals website, they shortened it.


Alberta wildlife officers kill 12 bears at dump


By Karen Kleiss, Edmonton JournalAugust 14, 2009Comments (17)
StoryPhotos ( 3 )

More Images » Bears at a landfill near Conklin, Alberta.Photograph by: Supplied, Edmonton JournalEDMONTON — Wildlife officers shot and killed 12 black bears at a landfill in northern Alberta on Tuesday in what is believed to be the largest bear cull in recent history.


People from the hamlet of Conklin, population 166, regularly bring their children to the dump to watch, photograph and feed the bears, and the animals had become accustomed to people.


“The landfill had improper fencing and there were reports people were feeding the bears,” Alberta Sustainable Resource Development spokesman Darcy Whiteside said. “It was public safety concern. These bears were not afraid of humans anymore.”


But critics said the mass killing was inexcusable.


“Instead of investing in fences that would keep the bears out of the garbage and away from humans, they decide the cheapest solution is to lay to waste a bunch of living animals as if they didn’t have a right to exist. It’s really deplorable,” said Sid Marty, a park warden turned activist who recently published a book about a garbage-seeking grizzly who mauled five people in Banff, Alta., in the early 1980s, killing one.


“What are they going to, shoot every bear that comes to the dump until the end of time?”


On Aug. 5, the ministry received a bear complaint from the PTI Conklin Lodge, a housing complex for about 300 oilsands workers, about two kilometres from the dump.


Fred Bannon, vice-president of operations, said the manager called fish and wildlife officers after he saw five bears climbing on decks and hanging around the buildings.


The bears were killed Aug. 11.


A Conklin resident who wished to remain anonymous was outraged when he heard the bears were killed instead of relocated, and contacted The Edmonton Journal.


“It’s totally inhumane. We are in their environment, there are no fences, this dump is unmanned, there are no signs to say don’t feed the bears,” he said.


The ministry is currently working with communities as part of its new Bear Smart education campaign, he said, and Conklin is on the list of future communities to work with. In the meantime, officers will be monitoring the area and making sure people don’t go to the dump to visit the bears.


He said Alberta Environment and the municipality are responsible for ensuring proper fencing is in place to protect bears and humans. “The fencing issue has been addressed with the municipality. It’s not our responsibility to build the fence around the landfill.”

Thorns2010

Ok, thanks for that.


And now hearing more of the story, yes it is pretty lame/uncool/whathave you that they seemed to one day say 'You know what? I'm sick of these bears, lets just shoot them'

Now I don't know a lot about bears, aside from black bears aren't known for aggressive behavior, but how far away would they have had to relocate the bears and not have them find their way back to this dump? 20 miles? 50? 100??

And putting up a fence while it seems like a good idea, I would imagine that the bears would just bust their way in anyway. The fact that 12 bears were in the area to be killed implies that they were 'trained' if you will to seek out/search for food at this place.

So on that grounds, since we humans created this feeding area, yes they definitively should have put more effort into fixing the problem. No excuse for choice that was made, but I can see that it was easy/lazy solution, and that is why it was made. Sad :(

Fifthelement

That is disgusting! I imagine that the majority of waste to the dump was being put there by the oilsands project mentioned in the article. A part of the lease contract should be sustainable management of waste.

Unfortunately, once bears lose their fear of humans they can become problem bears. A fence at this point would be useless. The bears would only move into the village or onto the lease to forage for scraps. The only other option would be to relocate the bears, but then they might die due to lack of foraging skills - I mean they have pretty much had an all-you-can-eat buffet for the last little while. However, it still would have been the more humane option as opposed to execution. It's unfortunate, but it seems to have been a case of "not-my-responsibility" for years, and the poor bears have had to pay the ultimate price.