People living on Burnaby Mountain are worried bears and other wildlife living in the conservation area around SFU and the UniverCity development are being endangered by looky-loos who put the animals and themselves at risk.
The ongoing problem was highlighted again last weekend, when about a dozen motorists pulled over on a busy stretch of University Drive East, where there is no shoulder, to take photos of a mother bear and two cubs grazing on an embankment.
Some of the people even left their vehicles and approached the bruins, according to UniverCity resident Kelsey Sung, who said she had to veer into the opposite lane to avoid the stopped cars, which she said didn’t even have their hazard lights activated.
She said she laid on her horn as she passed, both to scare off the bears and send a message to the people who had stopped illegally.
Besides the traffic hazard they created for others, she said the drivers also endangered themselves and the bears.
“Stopping on the road and interacting with bears this way, is a situation that will end with a dead bear, orphaned cubs, or dead or badly injured humans in a vehicle accident,” Sung said. “It’s just a matter of time.”
Bears that get too used to humans may become aggressive and have to be captured and destroyed.
It’s happened on the mountain before.
In June 2019, conservation officers captured and euthanized a black bear that had lunged and swiped at two picnickers.
The officers believed the bear had been living off garbage in the neighbourhood.
“A lot of people got really upset about it,” said Clea Moray, a director with the UniverCity community association. “A lot of people up here are aware of bear safety and that we live in a community that’s right next to the conservation area and bears are our neighbours.”
Because there are also university students, commuters and newcomers in the area, however, Moray would like the city to do more to raise awareness about bear safety.
She would like to see a pamphlet on bear safety sent out to the neighbourhood every year.
Most of all, however, she wants the city to put up signs telling people not to stop and not to approach wildlife.
UniverCity community association vice-president Stephanie Klatt, who also drove past the scene Sunday, agreed.
And she doesn’t want the signs to be too small either.
“We are living amongst the bears, so there should be adequate signage,” she said.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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