Nuicanse bear options

In light of a recent bear shooting in a residential area of Sudbury by an unidentified resident, I have been doing some thinking.

This year's blueberry crop in practically non existent due to a late spring frost. I believe that the bears are getting more and more bold and not fearing human contact. I don't believe that we should be killing every nuisance bear, but we do need to put some fear back into them. I keep my garbage cans and organics in the shed, but I have had several bears visit my yard so far this summer. My neighbour had a sow and twins at her front door last week and there are yearlings prowling as well. This leads me to believe that mama has taught several generations of her offspring to tour the neighbourhood looking for food.

I have chased on off using my car this year and two last year.

I have come up with a plan...

The police and MNRF should train and qualify community volunteers to respond to bear calls where they can fire off bear banger noise shells and bean bag rounds to put the fear of humans back into the bears without killing or maiming them. If dispatched to the call by a local resident, then the volunteer could simply call in and ID themselves and make sure the SWAT team isn't called out, 911 operators would know who was dispatched and would ignore gunshot reports in that area and time period.

I am thinking that hunters would be perfect for this task, they would be able to identify safe areas to direct their rounds, as well as aim correctly to not kill the bears.
If these volunteers were suitably trained and tested every year, as the police are required to do with their duty weapons, they could even take on the responsibility of dispatching the worst of the worst nuisance bears, relieving the police, who do not carry the ideal weapons and or training, as well as the MNRF officers who are already overstretched and underfunded. There are only about 250 MNRF Conservation Officers covering the whole province.

What do you think? I plan to put this forward to the MNRF, OFAH, local police and OPP. Hopefully we can get this or something similar up and running.

Won't work because of logistics. Who is going to crawl out of bed at 2 AM and chase a bear off someone's property that may be miles away from the volunteers residence? And be expected to do it for free.
If one person actually does give it a try how long will it be before the novelty wears off and they don't want to do it anymore?

Liability issues as well…should…something not go well.

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Originally Posted by JBen

Liability issues as well…should…something not go well.

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ahh yes..the demise of a lot of good plans..the Insurance coverage.

Bean bag shatters the windshield on a neighbours BMW ...who pays ?

I actually like the idea, in fact I mentioned it a few months back in another thread. A sort of 'deputy' Quick Reaction force to do the initial contact with the bear, assess the situation and go from there with non lethal procedures while waiting for the MNR/ OPP/RCMP to arrive.

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Originally Posted by MikePal

ahh yes..the demise of a lot of good plans..the Insurance coverage.

Bean bag shatters the windshield on a neighbours BMW ...who pays ?

I actually like the idea, in fact I mentioned it a few months back in another thread. A sort of 'deputy' Quick Reaction force to do the initial contact with the bear, assess the situation and go from there with non lethal procedures while waiting for the MNR/ OPP/RCMP to arrive.

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By application,only,a couple of volunteer retired guys on call 24/7 in many specific zones could cover this province quickly and effectively. Give them limited DCO authority,training and equipment. I think it's a brilliant idea.

I'll stick with Sawbill's comments above. The novelty of going in to save the neighbourhood would soon wear thin.

You are taking away the job of a unionized PS employee by doing this. HHhhmmmm.....can't see this ever taking off.

We're talking about volunteers being given official status to perform certain duties on behalf of the police. That's no different, liability-wise, from volunteer firefighters.

As for the novelty wearing off, etc., volunteer positions like this would quickly be filled by people hoping to get onto the police force or into similar jobs & wanting something to put on their resumes. Similar to volunteer SAR groups.

The one thing that would never happen, I think, would be having those volunteers dispatch nuisance bears if necessary. This is where the liability issues get too big.

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Originally Posted by welsh

We're talking about volunteers being given official status to perform certain duties on behalf of the police. That's no different, liability-wise, from volunteer firefighters.

As for the novelty wearing off, etc., volunteer positions like this would quickly be filled by people hoping to get onto the police force or into similar jobs & wanting something to put on their resumes. Similar to volunteer SAR groups.

The one thing that would never happen, I think, would be having those volunteers dispatch nuisance bears if necessary. This is where the liability issues get too big.

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I didn't mean we should hire a bunch of wannabe coppers,welsh,so,this program wouldn't be open to them. That's why I said "retired" volunteers,specifically,meaning people who have the time and ability to go at a moments notice with a hunting background who know what the h**l they're doing. I would be more concerned about liability from NOT doing something than the other way around. Not giving them the authority to dispatch a problem animal is just plain dumb. In that case,they'd just run into the same hand-wringing BS that we saw in the Markham incident,creating more roadblocks instead of solutions.

When a house is on fire.....few would argue there's s need to put out flames.

When there's a car wreck, few would argue there's a life in need of saving.

When a bear is wondering s neiborhood, can anyone say with a high degree of probability there's a need for action? and a volunteer shatters someone's window...."your honour the bear wasn't harming anyone and he did $2,000 damage...or the bear killed my dog as a result, or the bear reacts very badly.

The opp are already torn new ones anytime they shoot a bear..Why didn't they just trap it, tranq it. Then again we know if they do nothing and a bear does do something...they will be torn to shreds.

People will always second guess.

And there is a good video currently circulating on FB of COs in Florida tranquing a Black Bear and it goes on a run and ends up in the ocean where it starts to drown…….good thing it wasn't too mad and no kids got in the way.