'Quit babysitting them': Sask. hunter says people need to leave bears alone after mother bear, cubs put down
A bear and her two cubs were put down recently in the Candle Lake area.
“Officers always try to do everything they can first, trapping, hazing to have the situation not happen so I wouldn’t say it’s common, but unfortunately once bears become food habituated, there isn’t another choice because they will keep associating that food with people,” said Matthew Tokaruk, a black bear biologist with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment.
Bears generally stay with their mother for about two years, then they are off on their own. It’s usually the newly independent teenager bears that cause issues, Tokaruk said.
The ministry says it isn’t seeing an increase in the number of bears – but Ron Bodnarchuk, who has had a cabin in Candle Lake for 17 years, begs to differ.
Bodnarchuk, who hunts bears, said the lack of American hunters combined with more people out at the lakes is contributing to an increase in the number of bears in certain areas. Local residents have also been posting several photos of bears to social media.
He’s seeing more bears wandering around compared to other years and says it’s a problem for the residents and also the bears.
“Of all the years I’ve hunted, this spring I was probably within 20 yards of over 100 bears and of those bears, 30 were all different bears,” Bodnarchuk told CTV News.
Bodnarchuk says in his experience with bears over about 45 years, mother bears pose a challenge to trap and relocate because getting the entire family into a trap is hard.
The problem stems from people not taking the correct approach to deter bears from frequenting the area, he said.
“They have to quit feeding them, quit babysitting them and make it uncomfortable for the bears to be there.”
He says another mother bear and cubs are in the area now and he hopes they won’t suffer the same fate.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
A newspaper says video of Prince William and Kate should halt royal rumour mill. That's a tall order
Prince William and his wife Catherine have been filmed at a farm shop near their Windsor home, The Sun newspaper reported -- the first footage of Kate since she had abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition two months ago.
'You ask for your money, they disappear': Ontario man loses $17K to AI crypto scam
A Toronto man is spreading the word of a cryptocurrency scam that lures victims using AI-generated news sites after he lost $17,000 in investments.
Hertz CEO out following electric car 'horror show'
The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
High thoughts: The habits of Canadian cannabis users are revealed in a new StatCan report
Statistics Canada has conducted a series of surveys to measure the impacts of legalized cannabis since the Cannabis Act took effect in 2018. The latest one, the 2023 National Cannabis Survey, sheds light on users' preferences and habits last year.
Demand soars for solar eclipse glasses in Canada. Are they worth buying?
The demand for total solar eclipse glasses used to safely view the rare celestial event has been ramping up as sellers, along with astronomy and eye-care experts in Canada, warn that viewing the eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous.
Trump says Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and their religion
Former U.S. president Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and hate 'their religion,' igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.
Toronto family doctor who called patient's body 'perfect' suspended for 3 months: tribunal
A family doctor in Toronto has been suspended for three months after a disciplinary tribunal found that he failed to follow proper protocols while examining a patient's breasts and made inappropriate comments about her body.
Freddie Mercury's home is on the market for first time since 1980 minus his 'exquisite clutter'
Freddie Mercury's sanctuary in London, where he lived the last decade of his life, is on sale for the first time in nearly half a century -- minus his "exquisite clutter."
'The lost season': Winter comes to a close as Canada's warmest on record
The warmest winter on record could have far-reaching effects on everything from wildfire season to erosion, climatologists say, while offering a preview of what the season could resemble in the not-so-distant future unless steps are taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.