Home break-ins, complaint calls up sharply

Clare Ogilvie, The Province, Monday, August 21, 2006

WHISTLER — Christa Vandeberg knew there was something amiss as soon as she saw the garbage strewn around the front of her ground-floor suite.

But she was stunned when she opened her Upper Spring Creek front door and found fruit debris, torn open pasta packages, and bear scat in her home.

“I never would have thought that leaving open the window a slight amount would have enticed [a bear] to come actually into the house,” she said at the weekend.

“Now everything is locked and I don’t even sleep with the windows open at night.”

Most surprising of all, said Vandeberg, an events organizer, was that the bear continued its feast even though it had accidentally turned the TV on by stepping on the remote.

“It found where the garbage lived under the sink and it pulled the whole garbage can outside . . . then went back in and went through one of my dry-goods cupboards and emptied it out,” she said.

The bear had such a good time on its July 20 visit that it has returned at least once.

“I scared it off, but then when I was on the phone it came right up to the window and stared in at me,” she said.

Vandeberg’s story is not unusual this summer in Whistler, where there has been a sharp increase in bear home break-ins and calls about bears. The conservation office has received 800 calls, with 238 of them this month. The largest number of previous calls logged was 472 in 2004.

There have been 63 calls about bears entering or attempting to enter homes. As a result, four bears have been destroyed so far this summer.

During one of the home invasions on Aug. 13 a resident was injured by the trapped bear as it tried to escape the home. It’s the first time in Whistler that a human has been injured after encountering a black bear.

“It is unusual,” said conservation officer Chris Doyle.

Doyle said there are many factors which may explain why bear calls are up so much this year including a late start to the berry season, a high degree of bear habituation to people, and abundant food sources in and around the resort.

Sylvia Dolson of the Get Bear Smart Society in Whistler believes people should take more responsibility.

“If (bears) can knock down one bird feeder it saves them two days of foraging on green stuff,” she said. “The bears are not dumb so we have to set the ground rules here. If we don’t want bears in the yard and in the houses then we better smarten up.”

It’s likely people-bear interactions will continue to rise as more people head to Whistler in the summer.

“We’re filling in all the little bits and pieces of habitat and removing habitat and food sources,” said Dolson, citing construction of facilities for the 2010 Winter Olympics as an example.

Sylvia Dolson

Executive Director,

Get Bear Smart Society

204-3300 Ptarmigan Place

Whistler, BC V0N 1B3

Phone/Fax: 604-905-4209

www.bearsmart.com

“Coexisting with Bears”