The Conservation Officer Service in the Cariboo-Chilcotin has eased back into regular duties.
Williams Lake Conservation Officer Ron LeBlanc says this summer was very different from what they are normally used to and that they had stepped out of their role as fish and wildlife enforcement in assisting RCMP and Search and Rescue with roadblocks, evacuations, anti-looting patrols, and ensuring that the public was complying with area and lake closures.
“Because of the magnitude of the area and the request from the RCMP for us, there’s only so many of us in town we had to pull resources from all over the province and more than 50 other officers throughout the whole emergency were deployed in the Thompson and the Cariboo regions,” says LeBlanc adding it was early September when they had started back in their normal duties and that it’s already proving to be a busy month with the start of hunting season and increased calls of human-wildlife conflicts.
“The biggest issue we’re having right now is the problem of bears getting into unattended fruit trees and garbage. It’s not the bear’s fault that they’re getting into those things; it’s the homeowners that need to take responsibility to not have any of those attractants out.”
A road check last week in Quesnel had resulted in 5 charges, 9 warnings, and also 9 deer being seized within a four-hour period.