Bears were on the minds of Quesnel City Council members last (Tuesday) night, specifically what can be done to have fewer of them in town.
Besides educating the public once again that they need to pick their fruit and keep their garbage out of reach, City Manager Byron Johnson noted a couple of other options, including beefing up the bear aware program.
“We contribute two thousand dollars a year, and there is a Bear Aware Coordinator who works between the city, and some of the regional district areas have also put in some funding on that program. I would suggest that possibly when we bring that to Council this year, we should take a look at what that person does and see if Council wants to change that order or buy a higher level of service from that Coordinator.”
Johnson also noted that they were working with Prince George on a possible solution.
” Director Thomas (Director of Public Works Operations Matt Thomas) is working with his counterpart in Prince George. They are experimenting with various locking mechanisms for these cans, and some of the locking mechanisms seems to work good at various times of the year but then come winter they get jammed up. It also really slows down the process if you have an automated system where the driver of the truck has to get out and try to play with the cans to make them work better, so we are looking at that. We’re hoping Prince George comes up with a great solution there and if they do we’ll be looking to copycat, but the jury is still out on that one.”
Councillor Mitch Vik, concerned about the cost, suggested that the locks weren’t needed everywhere.
“The city may not need to purchase one for every household. We could consider an optional program where neighbourhoods that are suffering from bears getting into their garbage, it could be an optional program where people can purchase their own lock to protect their garbage can, so it wouldn’t necessarily have to be a huge expense to our city.”
Council has had some requests to go back to weekly garbage pickup, instead of every two weeks, but City Manager Johnson noted that communities with a weekly service were also having bear troubles.
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