CANMORE - Alberta fish and wildlife officers are pleading with Canmore residents to remove apples or cut down trees after they were forced to relocate a black bear from town last week.
This comes on the heels of another black bear being relocated from the Peaks of Grassi area and the destruction of at least one black bear in September for getting into so-called forbidden fruit in the Three Sisters Drive-Rundle Plant area.
Francesco Marchet, a district fish and wildlife officer for Canmore and Cochrane, said the black bear relocated last week was reportedly eating crabapples.
“We need some more support from the public. We’re always fighting food sources that we as people provide,” he said.
“We’re not in the business to go out and kill animals … sometimes we have to do the hard decisions.”
Fish and wildlife officers were able to tree the bear in a forested area in the vicinity of 17 Street and Pinewood Crescent on Oct. 10.
“They were able to get up to it and get it up in a tree, and they tranquillized it,” said Marchet, noting the bear was taken about 150 kilometres away.
“This one was a first-time offender so it’s been given a chance,” he said.
Nicolas Gagnon, 17, was walking with a buddy in a forested area by Canmore Community High School off 17 Street just after 4 p.m. on Oct. 10 when he came across what he called a big bear – believed to be the same one that was captured later that day based on location.
“There’s a bridge and the bear was laid down in a bush looking up and we were probably four or five metres away,” he said.
Startled, having never been that close to a bear before, Gagnon grabbed his friend by the arm to alert him.
“I thought, ‘oh shit’ and I said ‘bear’ and then we backed up slowly and got a safe distance away,” he said.
“Some other person came along, and we told them there was a bear and we left.”
Gagnon said the bear showed no threatening behaviour.
“I don’t think it moved the whole time, it just looked at us,” he said. “It was awake and looking up.”
Marchet said it was a public safety decision to relocate the bear before it headed further down the path of habituation.
“We felt this one was a good candidate to be removed,” he said.
The Town of Canmore has a fruit tree removal incentive program, which covers 100 per cent of removal costs to a cap of $500.
With a $10,000 budget allocated in 2023 led to the removal of 94 trees so far; however, the program was fully subscribed by the end of August.
A survey in 2018 identified there are approximately 2,500 fruit trees town-wide.
In Canmore, it is against the law to let fruit or berries accumulate on trees, bushes, or the ground, and new fruit-bearing trees or bushes cannot be planted. Fines can range from $250 to $10,000.
“Once bears get into these trees, they can become habituated,” said Marchet.
“They’re doing what bears do but we need to curb that. The more they come back they can get more brazen.”
