Monday Magazine, February 18/04

A hungry baby bear is getting the care it needs at the North Island Wildlife Recovery Association, after conservation officers, Highlands residents and the Greater Victoria Animals’ Crusaders worked together to rescue the starving animal. After the bear turned over several garbage cans in the area last week, district conservation officer Peter Pauwels managed to trap it in the Raven Heights area on February 13. “It was caught on Friday at 4 a.m.,” says Carol Sonnex, spokesperson for the animals’ crusaders. Pauwels drove the bear to the wildlife recovery association in Errington, near Parksville, later that day.

Last week, Monday reported the black bear was at large after hitching a ride in a garbage truck from Port Renfrew to Hartland Landfill. Pauwels says the bear got into a trash bin at the Port Renfrew transfer station, and got stuck inside until the bin was unloaded at the landfill. “My concern was that the bear was in the bin, because they’re not supposed to be able to get into it,” Pauwels says. He explains that residents who use the transfer station are asked to close the lids on the garbage bin once they’ve thrown in their trash. But, he says, “Every time I go there, the lid’s wide open . . . whoever’s using this facility should consider their level of respect toward wildlife.”

Pauwels and Sonnex are both concerned about the bear’s chances of recovery—it should be almost full-grown now, but it weighs about 40 pounds and is less than two-and-a-half feet tall. Pauwels says the state of the animal’s health is a clear example of how wildlife can pay the price for human laziness and irresponsibility—the bear survived on trash because the trash was so easy to find. “This bear’s grown up on garbage—it doesn’t know how to forage for food,” he says. “That didn’t have to happen