Let’s Give Our Wayward Bears A Break

05/01/2023

Don’t shoot anymore bears in urban areas unless it is rarely and absolutely necessary.

The Ottawa Police Service, the city, wildlife organizations, the province, the National Capital Commission and the federal government all have interests in this field in their own ways and useful resources in dealing with dangerous wildlife entering the capital.

Maybe it’s time for the City of Ottawa to bring either the expertise of these organizations together or their resources to develop a humane way to remove dangerous animals from the urban parts of the municipality.

It’s not a good look for the police shooting a young bear, as they did recently in the west end, and the police have become expert in not-a-good-look. It’s also rather a bad outcome for the bear. So young and so many dumps to rummage through and yet never to be.

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It was also an especially bad look for Kanata South Councillor Allan Hubley who is approaching police level in not-a-good-looks. Hubley covered himself in notoriety when he said he was concerned the bears would come into your house. The councillor has not been to a rural dump lately. When people show, the bears scatter which is what voters should have done in Kanata when Hubley put his name on a ballot.

Memo to the councillor from Kanata South: that mammal trying to get into your house is named Doug and he wasn’t after garbage but loose change.

The police and the city have had lots of time to get this right. Bears came into the ByWard Market at night for a dumpster and a beer, then made the mistake of staying past closing time. So a big part of downtown was shut down which was inconvenient for bear and people.

Meanwhile, former transport minister David Collenette woke up one morning before breakfast to see a bear in his Highland Park backyard. The bear took off never to be found again.

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A few years ago an elk decided to hang out around the O-Train rather than at the 7-Ellen with the kids and eventually had to be shot.

And most interestingly, a fly-fisherman friend of mine gets out on the Ottawa River to practise his craft at an ungodly time in the morning and sometimes would see a line of bears wading across the rapids north of Parkdale Avenue on the Ottawa River to get back to Gatineau Park. Their night-time raids on Wellington West restaurant dumpsters went unnoticed. Much like the urban coyotes that live in the core of Los Angeles and probably here as well.

Ominously, west-end schools have been locked down when the kids thought they saw a cougar, on the comeback in eastern forests, near a playground. Cougars are not something with which to trifle.

These are not isolated occurrences that, however, are usually handled much better by the animals than the the police. But then with the recent record of the police, right-thinking residents might consider running from the gendarmerie, too.

Our civic coyote policy has long been in the works and no doubt, with the city’s propensity to legislate, squirrels and raccoons will soon need to carry licences.

So let’s find a humane way to handle wayward wild animals in the city. Get experts in the field to develop it and make sure we aren’t releasing captured animals into areas where they are unlikely to survive.

Let’s get a policy down and use it properly.

Ken Gray

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