Rise in Hay River bear sightings could be due to fires, says wildlife officer

Hay River, N.W.T., residents have been seeing a lot of black bears in the community in recent days, and the wildlife officers who track the bears are busy.

Albert Bourque, a regional co-ordinator with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, says he knows of few places in the Northwest Territories as hospitable to bears as Hay River and Vale Island.

"It's just abundant with food and shelter for them," he says.

But this year is the busiest for bears Bourque has seen in his five years in the community. He knows of at least five roaming the West Channel area alone.

"I think a lot of that can be attributed to the record fire years that we've had, just displacing animals and loss of habitat." 

Bourque knows most everything about the bears he tracks, from their size to their habits and their preferred food sources. He says right now most of the bears are after snowberries. But he says he's had to destroy three bears this year that became hooked on garbage.

"Once a bear's on garbage, they're the ones that become problems," he says.

"They're the ones that are foraging in garbage cans; they're the ones that are investigating the barbecues on the back step, that kind of stuff." 

He says the department uses rubber bullets and bear bangers to scare them away, and live traps to move them away. When they have to put a nuisance bear down, he says the department still learns from it.

"We can satisfy a number of things like, simply, how many animals are being handled for wildlife conflict situations, the relative health of our bear population, those kinds of things," he says. "It provides some meaningful data for us." 

To keep N.W.T. bears wild, Bourque recommends keeping trash inside, fencing off your property and picking any ripe berries on your property.

When going for walks, make a lot of noise and carry bear spray for protection, he says.