Two bears killed in Whitehorse

Yukon conservation officers killed two bears this week that were regularly visiting Whitehorse neighbourhoods looking for food.

One was a black bear, the other, a grizzly.

The black bear had been roaming into backyards and even poked its nose against someone's window looking for food.

Kris Gustafson, a conservation officer with Environment Yukon, said officers repeatedly tried to deter the bear but it kept returning.

"If one person leaves their food or garbage where a bear has access to it, that's really all it takes," he said. "This time of year, bears are looking at putting on as much fat as possible prior to denning, which will happen very soon, and they are pretty pro-active in searching out food sources."

The grizzly bear shot by conservation officers was a very old adult male, he said, with virtually no teeth left.

"That bear was probably going to be starving to death in the next little while," he said. "And again it was attracted to some attractants that probably could have been handled a little bit better."

Gustafson says the bear problem could be solved if all Yukoners stored their garbage properly.

"It is frustrating for us sometimes. Whitehorse likes to present itself as a wilderness city and part of that is respecting the fact that we have responsibilities in terms of wildlife. Our options are reasonably limited.

"We can spend as much time as we can trying to educate and inform people about managing attractants, but we can’t follow everybody around, put their compost bin away for them, that sort of thing."