A grizzly bear safety workshop is being offered at the Bella Coola legion on Tuesday, June 20 from 7 to 9 p.m.
Additionally, an electric fence workshop will be offered Wednesday, June 21 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Both are free to the public.
Facilitated by Gillian Sanders, project coordinator with Grizzly Bear Coexistence Solutions in the Kootenays, the workshop is free and will provide information about practical and effective solutions and tools to safely mitigated grizzly bear conflicts.
“I have been doing this work for more than 20 years,” she told superfastbody.
She will also be available for free consultation visits on June 20 and 21.
The workshops are funded by the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation.
Sanders has done similar work in the Bella Coola Valley before in 2020 and 2011.
“I initiated doing the workshop knowing there are always bears and people in the valley of Bella Coola. I have an idea of what the valley bottom is like there with the salmon-bearing river and the various homes and people wanting to grow and raise their own food as well as commercial farms.”
Where she lives in the Kootenays - Meadow Creek - the situation is quite similar. There are land-locked kokanee salmon and a man-made spawning channel with a community right beside it.
The bears there come for fish and as they are undergoing a collapse of fish in the Kootenay Lake system, there is less of a natural food source for the bears.
“The steps we have taken here and throughout the Kootenay region have made good strides towards making it easier to live when bears are around and keeping things safe for both bears and people.”
Bella Coola Valley Tourism (BCVT) is continuing with its electric fence initiative in partnership with the Grizzly Bear Foundation by offering a 50 per cent discount on premium electric fence components.
READ MORE: Bella Coola Valley residents electric fence initiative renewed for 2023
Tom Hermance, former tourism president, has remained on with the BCVT to help administer the program.
Sanders has been collaborating with Hermance and sharing information with him.
“I am completely in support with that cost-share program and in a small way helped in the background to have that program initiated in Bella Coola,” she said, adding she has been running a similar program in the Kootenays for well over a decade resulting in more than 500 electric fences being installed.
Grizzly bears can make great neighbours as long as humans don’t feed them, Sanders commented.
Where she lives she has both black bears and grizzly bears coming through her property so 22 years ago she installed electric fencing to protect her bees.
Saunders said she understands how destructive grizzly bears can be and acknowledges conflicts are stressful and expensive and can be scary.
The education she is offering is to support people to have the best knowledge and skills in a bear encounter, even with a family group of grizzly bears for the best outcome.
“Sometimes bears learn the wrong behaviour and we have to destroy them and that’s part of co-existence too, but there are so many effective, easy steps that can be taken to really improve co-existence and make it much more possible and safe.”
Aside from electric fencing to protect homes, farms, ranches and agriculture, the other tool she promotes is bear spray for personal safety.
Participants in the bear safety workshop will have the opportunity to try using bear spray, which is the inert type so it does not have the pepper content.
“It’s a nice tool to practice with,” she added.
For more information email grizzlybearsolutions@gmail.com.
READ MORE: Grizzly bears in B.C.’s Chilcotin feast on salmon, prepare for hibernation
monica.lamb-yorski@wltribune.com
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