By Francine Ulmer WildSafeBC educates about management of attractants to reduce human-wildlife conflict and fruit trees are one of Powell River’s top bear attractants.
As a result of a recent incident with a bear near city hall, conservation officer Andrew Anaka advised city hall staff to cut down the unpicked and unmaintained apple tree on the property at the edge of the library parking lot. In an effort to promote public safety, they did cut it down.
Skookum Gleaners is also an option to reduce fruit and nut trees as an attractant while promoting food security, which is a value to many Powell River residents. You can call the gleaners to come pick your fruit and they share a third with you, the pickers keep a third, and a third goes to a local food-distribution center. You can even become a member and rent their apple press with friends and make your own juice.
Managing windfall fruit is another angle to the complex problem with fruit trees and wildlife. I have been contacted by concerned residents that people are dumping windfall fruit out in the countryside at popular hiking and biking trail heads.
For example, a Powell River resident found dumped windfall apples at her favourite hiking spot at the barricaded road leading to Haslam Lake. She chose to hike elsewhere due to fear of bears.
Luckily, WildSafeBC collaborated with Let’s Talk Trash team to design a brochure for the Powell River Regional District to address making compost in bear country. This is a great example of the regional district using its resources to address a complex problem and provide educational materials about waste management.
In the 5 Easy Tips for Making Compost in Bear Country brochure, tip number five states, “Large volumes of fruit or odorous green material can be donated as farm animal feed, buried at least 12 inches deep (dig a hole or trench and cover with soil), composted with care (layer with an equal amount of browns) or taken to a landfill.”
Managing the fruit in our community in a sustainable way is a big challenge, one that does have some homegrown solutions if we can work together as a community to share the bounty. We can do this through picking parties with friends and neighbours, renting the Skookum apple press, contacting Skookum Gleaners to share the bounty with the community, composting with care in bear country or sharing windfall fruit with a farmer as animal feed.
If trees are old, unproductive, unpicked and rarely pruned, removing them is an option if they have become a bear attractant.
Francine Ulmer is WildSafeBC community coordinator for Powell River region.
