Mt. Nusatsum

Mt. Nusatsum

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Fishless in Bella Coola

I've been hearing of people continuing to have some issues with persistent bears since the flood.  It's not surprising given the near total lack of fish - this valley hasn't been so fishless in a long time.  This time of year there would be late chum carcasses to capture, spawned out Chinook in the Atnarko River, and live fresh coho starting to pull into the smaller creeks which the bears could get.  A few coho may still come that weren't in the river at the time of the Great Flood of 2010, but it doesn't look like a strong year for coho either.  It's a good thing there are still some fruit trees that people don't mind the bears eating in the odd abandoned orchard.  Is an abandoned apple tree off on the edge of some old homestead site, a bear attractant when there is a native mountain ash tree 50 feet away?

There are always interesting debates in Bella Coola about fruit trees attracting bears and whether or not it habituates them and then eventually leads to the bears demise as a problem in your yard or someone else.  I think it does habituate them to a good food source so if you care about your trees you need an electric fence to protect the trees otherwise with most of the fruit trees bears behave like bears eating wild huckleberries - they eat the food and move onto the next opportunity whatever it may be.  Just not fish this year.  Grizzly

3 comments:

  1. I used to hike in the Rockies, and have seen grizzly bears on many occasions. Now, living on Vancouver Island, I don't have that opportunity. However, I am not sure I would want a grizzly in the apple tree out back. Couldn't people just pick the fruit off the trees? Pies for everyone in town and no tempting fruit for the bears. Great photograph - it makes me nervous, but I can't stop staring at it.

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  2. I say give the bears whatever you have and aren't using, they need it this year.

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    God Bless You :-)

    ~Ron

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