Bears & Wildlife

It’s a fact – bears live in our neighborhoods. While we may enjoy the occasional glimpse from a safe distance, inviting bears into our backyards can create serious hazards, both for people and for bears. With a growing bear population and residential developments advancing further into bear habitat, it is everyone’s responsibility to make sure that bears and people stay at a safe distance from each other. One person’s bad habits can create problems for a whole neighborhood. Bears that have become habituated to human smells and garbage are a hazard and are often destroyed. Help them out by not luring them into close contact with humans.

Merely sighting a bear does not imply a conflict. Bears naturally inhabit the mountains behind us and utilize green spaces, displaying opportunistic behavior in search of easy meals. Issues arise when bears become accustomed to feeding on our garbage, compost, bird seed, pet food, and unharvested fruit. Even items like unrinsed pop cans or a dirty barbecue can attract bears – if it can lure rats, it can entice bears.

Preventing conflicts is crucial, emphasizing the necessity to eliminate attractants. Approximately 20,000 calls to the provincial Conservation Officer Service reporting line in British Columbia each year are related to bears. Garbage stands out as the primary attractant mentioned in bear reports. Relocation proves ineffective with bears, as individuals often return to their home territory or become problematic in other communities. Translocated wildlife may struggle to adapt to new habitats, facing the risk of starvation or predation by existing territorial animals.

For additional information, contact the WildSafeBC Coordinator at 604-702-5086 or visit the following sites:

• WildSafe BC
• Get Bear Smart Society

“We lure bears in with an easy meal and punish them with death for accepting our invitation.” – Sylvia Dolson, Get Bear Smart Society

The City of Mission is dedicated to raising awareness and minimizing bear conflicts. Attractant management remains a concern within the municipality, resulting in the destruction of bears conditioned to human food. Cooperation from all residents is crucial to coexist and prevent these fatalities.

Bear encounters often go unreported due to the misconception that reporting leads to the bears' destruction by the Conservation Officer Service. However, this outcome is undesirable for all parties involved. Reporting provides an opportunity to intervene, educate, and eliminate attractants before problems escalate.

Collect Ripe Fruit

Pick ripe fruit and clean up fallen fruit promptly. If you have too much fruit to deal with, the Mission Food Access Network (MFAN) coordinates the gleaning of excess fruit and vegetables from your garden. To have food gleaning volunteers assist you with a harvest, please visit the MFAN online. One third the bounty goes to you, one third goes to the pickers, and the rest goes to a local, charitable food program.

Manage Your Food Scraps

Mission encourages its residents to separate all food waste (including table scraps, bread, bones and dairy products) from garbage and set it out for curbside collection. It is important to store curbside compost containers (“Rot Pots”) inside a secure enclosure until 5:00 am on collection day, but have it at the curb by 8:00 am.

One cubic yard of Rot Pot compost is made available to residents free of charge in the spring, and additional compost can be purchased at $25 per tonne – one tonne is about two heaping pickup truck loads.

For additional information on Rot Pot’s and compost, please visit our online Composting page section.

If you prefer to keep your own backyard composter, please do your part by adhering to the following practices:

• Locate your backyard composter in an open area, away from shrubs and trees.
• Ensure your backyard composter is actively composting by mixing the right amount of “green” and “brown” material.
• Never put animal products or cooked foods into your backyard composter.
• Immediately mix in and cover any fruit and vegetables you add to your backyard composter.

Keep Pet Food Inside

Please feed your pets indoors, and do not leave pet food outside. Even bird feeders can attract a hungry bear, so remove them between April and November, and hang them at least 3 metres off the ground in the winter.

Store Your Waste Securely and Don’t Set It Out Early

Garbage, recyclables, and compost should always be stored inside a secure container or enclosure and may only be set out between 5:00 am and 8:00 am on collection day.

If you don’t have a garage, shed or basement where you can store your curbside materials until the morning of collection, consider purchasing a Bear-Resistant Bin or building a secure enclosure. Search the internet for “wildlife resistant enclosures” for inspiration on how to go about it.