Three bear cubs were destroyed last fall in the Gibsons area because the only bear cub rescue shelter on B.C.’s south coast was over its capacity, conservation officer Dean Miller said this week.
Miller said Critter Care Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in Langley, with a capacity to care for 25 bear cubs, stopped taking orphaned cubs late last fall after it was housing 32.
“Unfortunately the family unit came into conflict – extreme conflict – when the facility was full,” Miller said. “They didn’t have the capacity. Otherwise, we would have tranquilized them and sent them there.”
Coast Reporter contacted Miller about the incident after Gibsons resident Sonya Bergen wrote a letter to the editor this week deploring the Conservation Officers Service’s decision last fall to destroy a mother and her three cubs in the Chaster and Pratt Road area.
“We had that bear acting aggressively toward people, breaking down doors and breaking into homes, and we gave it about 10 weeks – we had about 30 to 35 calls – and the decision was made to destroy the family unit,” Miller said.
“The cubs were destroyed with the sow because they were food conditioned and they were participating in the break-ins.”
Miller said extra efforts were made to refrain from destroying the animals.
“We hazed the bears and took a non-lethal approach on three occasions,” he said. “When a bear breaks into a home we usually destroy it, but we gave these bears more of a chance because it was a family unit.”
At one point, he said, it appeared the bears had started denning for the winter, but three weeks later the mother and cubs were back.
“More homes were broken into and we couldn’t tolerate it anymore.”
Last year’s drought-like conditions and forest fires contributed to the high number of orphaned bear cubs in the province.
“It was such a strange year,” Miller said. “I don’t understand why so many sows kicked out their cubs or why so many sows were in conflict.”
Bergen’s letter, titled “Death sentence for bears,” appears here.
