I agree with this letter, but think it should go the full way and include all wild life. Lavone Zeviar
Letters
'Charge devaelopers for bear relocation program'
Vancouver Province
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
CREDIT: The Associated Press
We owe it to bears to protect them in the face of development, reader says.
I am sick of reading about the number of bears killed because they are thought to present a danger to humans.
We need to remember that most of the Lower Mainland was, and still is, formerly bear territory -- mountain slopes and forests where they were able to roam free without risk of being shot or captured for intruding on human habitat.
Calls for relocating these animals, instead of destroying them, are met with statements from municipalities and conservation officers that there are insufficient funds to handle this process.
Recently, a bear was moved to a maximum permitted relocation distance of 12 kilometres, but the young bear returned to a shopping mall and was later destroyed.
If developers wish to build new shopping malls and housing complexes on virgin land, they should be compelled to pay a monetary surcharge which would be used to relocate "troublesome" bears that have the audacity to encroach on what is now perceived as human property.
That way, the bears could be relocated much further away than 10-12 kms, possibly by using airlifts, which would be funded by the development fund.
I do realize the relocation is no guarantee of the bear's survival, but at least its survival would be down to nature, and not determined by a human weapon.
Mary Clark,
Coquitlam
© The Vancouver Province 2004