Province offers tips as bears come out of hibernation

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – With spring now here, bears are emerging from their dens — and they’re hungry. That means you need to take the necessary steps to ensure your safety, and theirs.

One thing the province is reminding you of is very familiar — make sure you store your garbage and compost inside unless you have a bear-resistant container.

“Bears are really good at getting into garbage cans, and you’re going to be wanting to look at getting a bear-resistant can if you don’t have some other way to store that until the morning of pickup,” says Mike Badry with the Ministry of Environment.

But your trash isn’t the only thing that might catch a bear’s attention. Badry says bird seed is also a major attractant — and stringing a feeder high up won’t keep the animals away.

“The birds are quite messy feeders and they scatter seed, so unless you’ve got some way to catch that seed before it hits the ground and you have the bird feeder in a spot where bears can’t access it, bears are going to get to the seed on the ground,” he tells NEWS 1130. “So we really encourage people to not feed birds during the time of year where bears are active.”

Now when it comes to seeing a bear, Badry says never approach it. “Back away, give that bear room, remove yourself from the area.”

That’s for your safety, and ultimately the animal’s . “In most cases it’s not going to be a high risk to the person, especially if they see the bear at a distance,” he adds. “You don’t want to put yourself adjacent to a large carnivor where there could be a significant safety risk, but also you don’t want to further habituate that bear to people. The more comfortable bears feel around people, the more likely it is they’re going to gain access to those sorts of attractants like garbage, or bird seed, or composte.”

Unless you’ve got some really good camera equipment to take a picture of a bear from afar, Badry says you’ll want to avoid getting up close to take a selfie.