In the past two years on the Sechelt peninsula, local conservation officers have issued 15 dangerous wildlife protection orders (DWPOs) - the key tool officers use to make sure residents and business owners manage their bear attractants properly.
"It says, 'Here's a time to comply and manage your attractants, and if you don't, it's either a $575 fine or a court appearance,'" local conservation officer Murray Smith explained. When faced with such a fine, he said, people comply "pretty much always."
Smith said the majority of DWPOs have been issued in the Gibsons corridor and at some summer camps, but he noted that individual residences can be targeted as well.
Smith described a situation when he issued a DWPO at a residence in Sandy Hook, where ill-managed garbage and an outdoor freezer stacked with food attracted a bear into the house, and forced teenagers to barricade themselves into a bedroom while the bear wandered through the kitchen.
"[DWPOs] are for those kind of situations where we've got an imminent community threat," he said, noting that in that case, he gave the household three days to get their attractants under control.
Sometimes conservation officers will "blitz" a given area in the wake of a bear problem. Following the November 2008 RCMP shooting of a bear that had become habituated to eating garbage at Gibsons' Sunnycrest Mall, he said, conservation issued a number of DWPOs at the mall and in the commercial corridor.
Beyond DWPOs, conservation officers can issue on-the-spot fines if they discover somebody actively feeding dangerous wildlife -a category that includes cougars, bears, coyotes and wolves.
"We've had them put bacon on apples and stuff right in subdivisions," he said. "That's an automatic $345 fine."
