 All right, good evening and welcome everyone. Thank you so much for joining us this evening for a presentation of North Shore Wildlife with the North Shore Black Bear Society. Before we get started, just a few Zoom items tonight. We will be using the automatically transcribed closed caption feature for the hearing impaired to enable or disable the closed captions. You can select the live transcript option on your menu. There will be an opportunity for questions at the end of the program. You can type these questions into the Q&A feature on your menu. You may also use the Q&A feature if you need any technical support and we will not be using the chat or the raise hand features. I do recognize that we're all in different places this evening, but I would like to acknowledge that for those of us on the North Shore, we are on the traditional ancestral and unceded territories of the Squamish, Tsleitwachuth and Musqueam nations. I personally am incredibly grateful to live in these beautiful lands that we share with so much amazing wildlife. The Coast Salish peoples have been the careful caretakers of these lands since time immemorial. They have always lived peacefully with the wildlife and I strive to learn from these teachings and be respectful of all the creatures that we share this land with. I am so delighted this evening to welcome Lucy Cadman, who is the executive director of the North Shore Black Bear Society, and I will turn it over to Lucy. I thank you so much Kendra and thank you very much to West Vancouver Library for hosting this presentation tonight. Very grateful. And I would like to just acknowledge that the North Shore Black Bear Society acknowledges and thanks the Coast Salish people whose traditional unceded territory the North Shore resides on and it's a privilege to live and work in this space. I'm here with you from Deep Cove this evening and I do want to share as well that I'm very proud to share photographs this evening that have been taken by my friend Tony Joyce, who's an ethical wildlife photographer. It's very, very important to me. So we do hope that you enjoy the presentation and the beautiful photographs that he shared with us. So the North Shore Black Bear Society, we work in partnership with all three North Shore municipalities and we are active year-round providing education on the best practices for sharing the habitat with black bears. And we've been around for around 15 years and about five years ago I expanded our program to cover basic information on other wildlife that people had lots of questions about. So tonight our main focus will be our beautiful black bears, but we'll also be talking about coyotes and cougars and the best practices for sharing the space with those animals. So the North Shore Black Bear Society promotes responsible coexistence. We want to make sure that people feel happy and comfortable living in black bear habitat, exploring in black bear habitat. And of course, we want to reduce the number of human cause black bear deaths on the North Shore and across BC. So the North Shore Black Bear Society maintains a website just created a new website last summer with lots of information and lots of wonderful photographs. So do take a look on our website and if you see any wildlife in the community or on the trails, I really like to know who's moving around, where, at what time of year that helps me to collect very valuable data, which helps me with educational outreach and it can also help with potentially trail closures in areas where we need to protect our wildlife. So if you see a coyote, a cougar, a bear or a bobcat, please let us know. You can call or text the number on the screen here. That's my direct cell, but you can go to our website and make that report. We also maintain social media. So I'm putting out lots of information on Facebook and Instagram, occasionally on Twitter. So what we like to do throughout the season is let people know what our bears are up to and their seasonal habits, what's going on on the North Shore and what's happening to bears across British Columbia. Because certainly where we are in BC, we have more bears than anywhere else in Canada. And it's a wonderful privilege to share the North Shore with these magnificent animals. We hope that you enjoy living in bear country too. Some other initiatives that we do to increase that outreach whenever, when anybody makes a report to us via text on the phone or through email, we will send a PDF with some basic information on the best practices for living in bear habitat. So how we can reduce attracting bears to our homes and exploring in bear habitat, the best practices for trail use and some information too on basic bear behavior and very importantly what to do during an encounter. And we encourage that information to go out to block watch captains and the wider community. We'll also respond to reports made from schools and we'll ask the elementary schools and the high schools to issue this information to all teachers and families and that really helps us to get the information out there too. We do write to everybody that buys a house on the North Shore and we welcome them to bear country. So every year we welcome about a thousand new residents and in that welcome letter, they'll learn about the bylaws that we have. So we've got very strong bylaws in the district of North Vancouver and the district of West Vancouver in particular. They're our most active areas for bear activity. It lets people know what time they can put their garbage out and such and just gives an overall idea of what it's like to share the landscape with these animals. Some other things that we do may have seen around the community. Every year we visit thousands of homes and leave educational material that might be proactively in the late winter and early spring based on the previous year's activity or reactively such as our bear in area hangers. It's a great opportunity to meet bears in the community as well where we're canvassing and of course to speak to residents and answer any questions that they might have. We also place signage in the community. So in the district of North Vancouver and the city of North Vancouver, the society is responsible for placing that signage. In West Vancouver, we facilitate that signage with your parks department. So just made the first request for signage today in West Vancouver in the core field community. Not too surprising, but bears are starting to emerge from their dens earlier and earlier every year and it was just this time last year that I had the first bear report from Eagle Harbor in West Vancouver. So this time it's a single bear in the core field area that's already been sighted. So it's been a very, very mild winter and due to unnatural food source has been available as well. Things like birdseed and garbage that does contribute to a longer season of bear activity here on the North Shore. So bears are going to be out and about very soon and at least one that we know of and I'm sure some more that haven't been reported or perhaps haven't been seen yet. So it's the perfect time to be talking about these animals. Just a quick overview. So this is just a screen grab of the number of signs that were placed across the North Shore last year. This is just a bear activity. We do place signage too for coyotes and cougars. So we place over 300 signs all across the North Shore. Even in the city of North Vancouver we get activity on Central Lonsdale, Lower Lonsdale now in the Queensbury area. We get activity at the Auto Mall down at the beach in Deep Cove and all across West Vancouver. So bears travel extensively in search of food. That's one of their motivations. So that would be natural foods, beautiful salmon berries, the dandelions that we have around the community, the clover and then our natural foods, things like pet food, barbecue, grease, the bird feeders. They're a really strong attractant at this time of year. So food is a big motivation and you'll see that the bears move through wildlife corridors to the green spaces that travel through residential areas. They'll travel through creeks and rivers. Many animals will use those spaces to avoid people as much as possible. The other motivation for bears living in areas closer to people. So typically what happens is the bears live on the periphery of our urban environments and then they come down into residential areas. But we do have some bears that will den so make their winter home very, very close to residential areas. Occasionally on vest properties as well. We've seen that before. In West Vancouver, down where I am in deep cove, we've seen that. So the motivation to live on the periphery of an urban environment for a bear is actually safety. So very often the bears that we see on our busy trails during the daytime and in the community are the vulnerable population of bears. So that vulnerable population would be female bears with their cubs, juveniles at teenage bears, bears that are injured and very old bears. Now those bears are seeking safety from dominant bears who are a danger to them. Those dominant bears, the adult male bears typically live further away from people. They occupy the best habitats and they're most active at night. And that forces these vulnerable bears to seek safety living closer to people and by being active during the daytime. So that's very often why we see bears in the community as well. So many of the bears that we'll see in residential areas, not always, but there are juveniles and we do get lots of moms and cubs as well, especially in West Vancouver. So that just covers a little bit about why we see bears in the community. It's not just food sources that they're after. It's safety as well. And we see that when we see young bears dining very close to residential areas, we've had situations before where females have given birth to cubs in dens very, very close to popular trails. And that is to seek safety from those dominant bears who are a danger to them. So the bears that we have living here on the North Shore, we've got one species, the North American black bear. This is the most common bear species in British Columbia. It's thought that we've got about 120, 130,000 black bears, but let me tell you that nobody's actually doing research on the numbers. So it really is a guesstimate, but it's thought that we've got a healthy population and then brown bears or grizzly bears. So no grizzly bears in the wild on the North Shore. We've got grinder and cooler up at Grass Mountain, but across other parts of BC, there are around 10,000 grizzly bears. So when it comes to grizzly bear habitat, they really don't live too far away. If you go to Squamish or Whistler or head east to Manning Park, that becomes grizzly and black bear habitat. The only bear that you'll see at the moment on the North Shore in the wild is a black bear. Now, we of course never encourage people to get close to these animals. It's great if you like to go out onto the trails and up into the mountains, take a pair of binoculars. You can then get a really good view from a safe distance without encroaching on their personal space too. But just some ways to tell what bear you're encountering. Perhaps you've gone to the back country of Whistler for a hike and you see a bear. We might think to look at the color, but in fact, both of these bears can have black fur. They can be dark brown, light brown. They can be blonde. They can be a red cinnamon color and very rarely they can both be white as well. So we look at other physical characteristics. Something very noticeable about a grizzly bear that a black bear doesn't have is the big hump on their shoulder. And that's all muscle. And that's muscle to help those grizzly bears turn over rocks to look for grubs and to help them dig. Grizzly bears love to dig. Now, grizzly bears claws are up to 11 centimeters long and they're actually quite straight and they're designed not for climbing, but for deep, precise digging. They'll dig for ground squirrels. They'll dig for the roots of plants. They'll actually use that shoulder muscle and those long claws as well to dig their winter den. So grizzly bears like to live in wide open spaces think estuaries, alpine meadows and they also make their winter home higher elevations. Up in the subalpine, what they'll do is they'll dig a tunnel and a chamber into the side of the mountain and bears are like cats. They can squeeze into small spaces. They'll then squeeze into that space for the winter period. Now, black bear claws are very different. Now, black bears evolved in forested areas and they're very, very agile climbers and that's thanks to their excellent claws. They've got five very short sharp curved claws on each paw and black bears are very, very comfortable in trees. That's their safe place. They prefer forested areas and that's why the North Shore is the perfect place to be a black bear. Other things that we can look for are the ears. So grizzly bears have got very small rounded ears whereas black bear ears are quite large and pronounced and the face shape as well. A grizzly bear has a dish shape profile whereas a black bear has a very straight nose and muzzle. So just some ways to tell them apart. Not always by size. We can have very, very large black bears even in the community in North Vancouver and small grizzlies. So we look at those other physical characteristics. So here's an example of the most common color phase of black bear that we have here on the North Shore. So I mentioned that there could be different colors. We won't see a white black bear here on the North Shore. They live in the Great Bear Rain Forest and that bear is known as a commodity bear or a spirit bear, a subspecies of black bear that has white fur due to recessive gene. But we do get different color phases on the North Shore. The most common, as I said, is this classic black bear with the black fur and the tan muzzle, the tan nose and other color phases that we see. We see the cinnamon color and very often cinnamon or brown face black bears live in West Vancouver. We've got a cinnamon bear in the Lynn Valley area at the moment or we did last season not heard about that bear just yet. But most of them seem to be in West Vancouver and bears have different markings as well. So they might have a patch on their chest. There's a beautiful bear in West Vancouver last year that had a huge solid white patch on his chest and these are called chest blazes. Bears might have marks on their faces as well around their ears and on their eyebrows and these markings help us to identify individual bears. It can be quite tricky. So these blazes really help. Here's another example of a blaze on a bear so different shapes and sizes here and very much what happens is most black bear cubs are born with this unique marking on their chest but they'll often lose them. So bears lose their fur and their fur regrows every year and so they can change a lot in the first few years of their life up until about being four or five years old. It's very difficult to identify a bear as an individual because they do change so much in appearance. They can be black with this white chest patch one year and the next year their fur is almost all brown. So it can be very tricky to identify all the different individual bears that we've got living here on the North Shore but we try. So black bears have got excellent sensors. They've got an excellent sense of smell. In fact, that's their best sense, their best tool. They can smell 2,000 times better than we can. So bears really trust their nose more than anything else. They've got great eyesight. They can see in color. They see very well at night. They've got great hearing but until they get a smell of something they're not really sure what it is. So that's why it's very, very common for bears to stand up when they encounter people, hear a noise and that's so they can lift their nose from the ground and get a better sense of what is around them. Now a standing bear isn't an aggressive bear. A standing bear is a curious bear and in fact, it's quite common during close encounters especially if the bear has been surprised for the bear to stand up for a moment just to use their nose to identify what you are, what that noise was that's just disturbed them and also to identify a safe route to leave. Bears typically want to avoid close encounters with people and usually they will leave. They don't run away but they'll often just leave. They don't want to get close to people intentionally but they need to make sure that it's a safe place to leave especially if it's a young vulnerable bear. Perhaps you just surprised a mom in cubs and the mom needs to smell and source out a safe route to leave because there could be another bigger bear close by that we're not aware of and we could potentially push that family into the path of that bigger bear that would be a danger to those cubs. So when they stand up and they're smelling around and they're moving the head from side to side that's making sure that they're finding a safe place to leave as well. As I mentioned that we shouldn't expect bears to run away from us and that's because bears aren't fearful and we don't want them to be. We don't want bears to be running through the community running across roads. We don't want them to be fearful as well because there are so many people and dogs spending time in their home that if they're afraid of people they might feel defensive around us. So we don't want to encourage them to get close. We of course don't want to feed them or give them any reason to get close to people intentionally but we also don't want to make them fearful. We don't want to try and scare them away and we also need to make sure that we don't expect them to run. I think that's one of the big misconceptions about bear behaviors that many people think that if a bear doesn't run away from us then it's bold and aggressive. Absolutely not. That's just an intelligent animal that understands that if they run every time they see a person they will get absolutely nothing done. Now it's very normal for bears to move very slowly through the community and that's actually a good thing. Now bears if they do want to run though are very very fast. So we won't win a bear in a running race. They can run at 65 kilometers per hour. Now we shouldn't run if we encounter wildlife and it's hard. I understand if you're afraid your instinct isn't as to scream and to run away but we need to go against that instinct and try and stay nice and calm and be very calm with the way that we move our bodies whether you meet a bear or a coyote maybe a cougar. If we run we could trigger that natural chase instinct that these animals have. It's exceptionally rare for bears to chase people but we need to make sure that we don't trigger that instinct. It's the same situation as if you were on your bike. You would very slowly dismount and back away from the bear rather than pedaling away really fast because you could just trigger that chase response. As I said, black bears are very comfortable in trees so look up when you're in the forest. Obviously there's food in the trees and there's also safety. So often in the summer it's nice and shady up in the tree canopy so our bears will be snoozing up in the trees. You probably won't even notice them. And as a safety aspect that's one of the first places that a bear will look to go during a close encounter with a person or another animal is their safe place which is in a tree. So they can practically walk up trees. It's very, very impressive to see how agile these bears are at climbing and very rare for a bear to come down a tree if people are close by. So the bear will sit out and wait in that safe place for quite some time until everybody's left the area and then they'll feel comfortable to climb down and move on. So this is why what we don't want to do is we don't want to stand at the base of the tree that's going to stress out the bear and we don't want to trap bears especially in the community. This is what we see quite often and we understand that people love our bears. They want to get photographs but we really need to give them lots of personal space. We should never step into their space but always away. What we do if everybody runs out when there's a bear in the neighborhood and the bear is in the tree make that bear a really easy target to be killed because he trapped that bear in the community. Best thing to do is to get everybody inside, make sure it's nice and quiet, watch from the window and the bear will feel comfortable enough to climb down and go back into the forest. So bears have been in their dens now for a very short period of time here on the North Shore. So we have a very long bear season and that's due to what mild winters and access to unnatural foods. So the reason that bears den for the winter period is not because of the cold, it's because of low food availability. So over the winter period they can serve their energy and they hide out in a den and a den as I said could be very close to popular trails. It could be in the community. It's usually the base of a tree, the hollow base of a tree or under an old fallen tree and again, black bears will use their claws to dig a tunnel and a chamber and they'll spend months preparing these dens, taking lots of materials inside to make a nice comfy mattress and our bears on the North Shore typically will start to den now around mid December and we do hear a bear activity over the winter period and that's typically from male bears. If male bears can find food from people over the winter, they will leave their den occasionally and our bears are waking up earlier and earlier every year. So last year the bears were awake in mid-February identified nine individuals that were awake and active in communities where they found food from people and just yesterday got that first call from West Vancouver. So we know that the season is very, very long here on the North Shore. Winter dormancy is a very short period but it's an important time. Bears aren't true hibernators so when they go into that winter then they're not in a deep sleep. They're in a light sleep and that helps them to protect themselves but to threats over the winter. Another active bear or another animal could enter the den and very commonly what happens as well is bears that den at higher elevations when the snow starts to melt in the late winter and early spring it will flood and the bear needs to be able to respond quickly especially if it's a female that's given birth. So all our black bears and grizzlies are born at around the end of January, early February and a female will only give birth though if she's healthy. So mating season for black bears and grizzlies takes place in the summer. So May to mid-July typically on the North Shore is when we'll see bears mating and black bears have got delayed implantation. So when the black bear female goes into the den in the early winter period if she's nice and healthy and nourished any fertilized eggs will develop into cubs and she'll give birth up to six cubs but that's the record usually we see two or three but if she's malnourished or perhaps injured her body knows she's not strong enough to raise cubs that year she's responsible for feeding the milk and any fertilized eggs will just absorb but if she does give birth she's going to be feeding them her milk up until at least the following fall and bear milk is like whipping cream so the cubs when they're born are about the same size as a chipmunk and in about three months they'll be the size of a house cat so they grow quite quickly. So usually the first bears that we do see on the North Shore to emerge from the dens are males bigger and stronger many of them will have been active periodically as well over the late winter but how do we know if it's a male or female? Well again, never encouraging you to get close for that look but just some things to look for so if it's a bear with cubs then that will always be a female she's responsible for solely responsible for raising those cubs. Things that we can look for with males so male bears will fight other males and that could be for a female for a food source, for a home range and so male bears often have lots of scarring on their face they are often bigger but not always we've got some very big female bears especially in the Lynn Valley area another thing to look for is bears pee a lot and when a bear pees if it goes out the front then that's a male if it comes out of the back then it's a female and a female bear also has what's called a rope it's like twisted fur at the back where the pee has come out so it sounds kind of gross but that's something that you can look for and they definitely pee a lot during close encounters with people but that might not be where you want to concentrate your eyes. And the next bears that we see are females with last year's cubs so these cubs would have been born the previous January they'll leave the den around late April early May they'll spend the spring summer and fall with mom she'll stay very close teaches them all about food availability how to stay safe, how to climb, how to swim and then the whole family will squeeze into a den for another season and they'll go into that winter dormancy and then they emerge and these little bears are no longer cubs but they are now yearlings I just like to call them teenagers so these teenage bears will spend about another month with mom before she sends them away and that's called dispersal or family break up it's very distressing to see and that's because the cubs or the yearlings have no idea what's happening and why but around late April early May what will happen is the mother bear will send these yearlings away she'll just push them away she won't tolerate them in her space and they'll cry and they'll whimper they won't understand they'll try to come back and she just keeps pushing them away until they get the message and that's because it's about to be mating season and the dominant bears will be coming the males will be coming down the mountain in search of females and she needs not only to produce more cubs but she needs to keep these yearlings safe from those big males who are a real threat to these young bears so that's a very very busy time for multiple bears being in the community so what we'll see sometimes is these teenagers that are being pushed away from mom if they have a sibling they might stay together for a year or two and we've seen now siblings staying together for three or four years on the North Shore which is very unique and also bears are quite social so they might meet bears that are being pushed away from their mom in other communities and they all might hang out together for a little while until they eventually separate and that just helps them during that period of being alone for the first time their mom has been there to protect them and to guide them for all that time but it is a short time it's about 18 months that a bear cub spends with its mom so not much time to learn which is really important that we try not to interrupt that really valuable time of teaching and learning and then the last space that we see so we won't know until May how many new arrivals we have on the North Shore but the moms and cubs the last to emerge and that just gives the little cubs time to grow and they'll spend most of their time in May, June very very close to the den area the mother bear will send the little cubs up into the tree canopy while she forages close by so a very big misconception about black bear moms is that they're very aggressive and that's not the case in fact statistically a female black bear with cubs is the least dangerous bear that you will encounter and their nature is very very timid and the way that they avoid confrontation with people it is to retreat and is to hide sometimes they can't do that though and we might be in a situation where we've surprised them at close range now typically what she'll do she'll send the cub up into the tree she does that by making a clacky noise with a jaw and that cub nose that's the signal to hide and the mother bear will hide at the base of the tree and be really quiet if it's a close encounter what she might do she can't get that cub up into a tree and she has to kind of stand her ground a little bit she's going to show you she's going to communicate that she's really stressed and she's asking for space and she's going to do that by popping her jaw like clacking her teeth she's probably going to drool a lot if you don't respond and you don't slowly back away she might feel pressured to swat the ground or even take a step in your direction that's how she communicates that she's asking for space so whenever we meet a mother bear or any bears we're just going to initially always be nice and calm just try and be as calm as you can we're going to talk in a nice calm tone and just back away to show that you're not a threat to her and her family and that's all that the bear wants to see black bears rarely make physical contact with people these animals are in close proximity to people daily on the North Shore from so much of the year without incident they're very tolerant they're very calm and they're very peaceful animals she won't appreciate you getting close to the cubs intentionally of course and that's when we will pressure that kind of defensive behavior where she's drooling a lot she might make vocalizations and that's just how she communicates to us that you're too close to her baby or too close to her so the way that we communicate is by stepping backwards to show that we're not that threat so she's got a job to teach this little one everything they need to know and food is obviously a necessity now bears aren't always hungry when they first emerge from their den in the spring they've gone through a period over the winter of not eating and for some bears that can be up to six months so when they're in their den they don't eat they don't drink they don't go to the bathroom so it takes a little while for the metabolism to get going again Black bears are classed as carnivores but in fact they're omnivores and they eat a whole range of foods some animal proteins that they get though they really like bugs so you'll see sometimes on the trails or even in the garden where bears have been digging up ant hills they love moths they'll sometimes hunt for smaller mammals they'll take advantage of roadkill as well and of course salmon in the fall so some of us are very fortunate to live next to salmon there in rivers and creeks in the community so it's not long for us to see bears fishing in areas where people live here on the North Shore so look out for these seasonal foods and we should expect to see bears of course very very active in the falls by our rivers and creeks and then other food sources so about 80 to 85% of their diet is actually vegetation they love grass dandelions and clover so they're the foods that they're really focused on in the spring time a lot of these foods grow along the roadside as well so if you're driving up to Whistler you might see bear on the roadside grazing we ask if you see a bear anywhere as you're driving not to pull over and take pictures but to slow down and give the bear plenty of space if we turn off our engines we're going to get the bears comfortable around vehicles and that will contribute to them being hit and killed on our roads every year on the North Shore bears are hit and killed on highways and residential areas as well we lost two bears to vehicle collisions in West Vancouver last year and three the year before that so it's definitely something that contributes to them being killed on the North Shore as well as other human caused reasons but look out for these natural foods so the salmon berries are the first berry that we get on the North Shore we've got mountain ash over leaf blue berries so very very often bears will just be on the other side of the trail foraging and it's a really important food source for these bears they can eat 60,000 berries in a single day so we do ask that you pick with bears in mind when you're foraging for your own natural foods and then things like crab apples that's a fall favourite as well as the salmon and so you'll get the bears in the crab apple trees in the community as well so that's a very strong attractant so just look out for these foods and bear in mind that this is what the bears will be foraging on and it's very normal to see bears during the day so as I mentioned fall is a very active time for bears and that's because they need to prepare for that winter dormancy and as they won't be having any food over the winter you need to eat as much food as possible in the fall so in the fall is a period of excessive eating and drinking it's called hyperphasia and bears during this period are awake for about 20 hours a day in search of as many calories as possible and they'll be relying on the fat reserves that they build in the fall well into the following spring they don't actually start to gain weight until the summer so it's very very important time for them it's the time of year that we see an increase in bear activity in the community as well as they look to gain those extra calories so September, October, November are very very busy times for bear sightings on the trails and in the community as well and in the while a bear can live for 25 years or more this is a fully grown bear eating dandelions very sadly though bears that live closer to people live significantly shorter lives that is due to vehicle collisions being killed for finding food from people even poisons and such high numbers of rodenticides that's having an effect on our wildlife and we shouldn't think that it's not affecting bears as well so there are lots of things that contribute to the deaths of these animals and very often the bears that live closer to people are juveniles so many of our no-show bears don't even make it to adulthood which is very very sad and this is a beautiful bear and this is a manning park so let's just talk about when you spend time in areas where bears live there might not always be signage to tell you that bear is being sighted in that community or that park but wherever you go on the north shore it's bear country and we can see them any time of year so don't get complacent we should be looking out for signs that bears have been using the space and so a big indicator of sometimes very big is bear scat so very often people don't see the bear that's travelled through their property but they'll see the scat that they left behind so this one next to my boot here is up on Cyprus mountain this was taken in spring where bears are eating lots of grasses their scat is very black in the summer when they're eating lots of berries it can be bright pink and purple here we've got one full of Pacific crab apples that's the nice healthy foods here this tells us if it's an adult or a cub just based on the size and the diet very often I'll find the scat and it's full of plastic and it's full of garbage because when bears eat from garbage cans or organics cans they'll eat absolutely anything that smells like food and so their body gets full of plastic and it's then very hard for them to absorb the healthy nutrients that they need to survive so it's very very damaging to bears to eat unnatural foods if the scat is shiny and wet you know it's fresh and a bear is probably still in the area so if you see the areas with an abundance of this kind of sign and you don't want to meet a bear you should avoid those spaces another thing to look for are tracks it's good when it's raining outside go out into the forest it's nice and muddy or if we've had a light snow look for bear tracks so bear tracks bears have got five toes and five claws the claws aren't retractable like a cat so you do see the claw mark if you're up in Whistler or Manning Park and you find a bear track there is a subtle difference to how the toes are shaped with a grizzly and a black bear but it's hard to find a clear track the easiest way to tell the difference would be to look where the claw mark is so remember grizzlies have got long claws and so the claw mark will register much further away from the toe than it would on a black bear black bears have got those very short sharp claws so if you see fresh tracks go in one way that's your cue to take a different route and give that bear some space we don't want to approach these animals intentionally other things that we might find are marked trees this actually on the cedar I found in a residential area in West Vancouver so when black bears climb trees it leaves a small mark but this is deliberate and this is a form of communication so this is potentially a male bear marking the tree reaching up as high as he can to mark the tree to signal to other females he's in the area and so bears will leave these scent markings so if you find these marked trees take a picture but we ask that you don't touch them you'll take away the bears message remember bears are driven by their nose and so the bears will go to these scent markings you'll see those videos too where the bears rub their backs on trees and sometimes that's just for an itch but very often it's to leave their scent behind and so young bears in the area will smell this and know a big male bear is in the area and they know to move on so this is how bears talk to each other they leave these marks on trees you might see shredded logs too skunks will do this on a small scale but if it's a big shredded log it's usually a bear that's used their canine teeth and their claws to look for bugs so when we're moving through areas where bears live it's really important to be present so not looking at you found the whole time and just been looking out for these clues looking out for bears but been looking out for the fresh pile of scat and all that will help you to avoid a close surprise encounter be aware of other wildlife as well so very often when there's a cougar or a coyote or a bear close by the ravens and even the stellar jays and the crows will be very very vocal so if you hear that noise on commotion up ahead of you maybe just take a different route that day very often for bears I feel very bad for them they've got the ravens and the crows following them all the time so if I lose sight of a bear in the community I'm listening for two things the garbage can tip in over and I'm using the ravens and the crows to let me know where that bear is as well so they're a great indicator for bigger wildlife in the community a be heard is really important the best tool that you've got is your voice bears are very intelligent animals they recognize human voices they don't know what we're saying they don't know English so we can speak in any language but make sure that you make a noise as you move through the trails it just means talking to each other if you hike alone talk to the birds and the squirrels and especially if you're walking by a river or a creek or in a narrow overgrown area you want to be a little bit louder you want to call out often and be slower as you move through those areas as well just to give the animal an opportunity to avoid you very often what will happen with bears if they hear people coming they'll step off the trail and what you might see is if you walk on the trail you might turn behind you and the bears out just behind you and that's because they've waited for you to pass they very often yield to people not always but they do spend a lot of time doing that a bear might also scale a tree if they hear you and again that avoids that close encounter sustained on established trails is really important so we don't damage sensitive habitat and as I mentioned before bears can be just off the trail eating or sometimes resting as well they'll rest very very close to the busy areas they like to rest at the base of cedar trees lots of shade there in the summer very hard to see them they're very camouflaged in the forest and staying on established trails means that we need to keep our dogs on the trails as well so keeping dogs on leash is very very important more than half of all negative encounters between people wildlife involve off-leash dogs because the dogs go off trail they disturb and pressure the bear the bear feels as if it needs to defend itself and sometimes the bear will chase the dog and the dog will very often run back to the owner and that's when people and bears have these close encounters so bears on the North Shore for the most part are quite okay with dogs in the sense that they're not responding in any kind of aggressive way they're very tolerant and they're very used to seeing encountering dogs on the trails so we don't expect them to run away it's illegal to allow your dog to chase the bear remember we don't want bears to be afraid of dogs that could pressure future defensive encounters but it's really really important to keep your dog on leash to keep everybody nice and safe so we never want to leave any food unattended not even just for a moment so don't you know go and put the cooler on the picnic table and then go back to the parking lot and leave it unattended now it's very rare for bears to approach people for food but they will take the opportunity if people aren't close by so what we've seen sadly over the past few years with more people spending time in our parks is more people leaving food unattended and then our bears gaining access to this unnatural food and so bears are even killed in the forest if they find food from people so it might be your cooler, might be your backpack never leave anything out of reach always keep it very close by and if you're taking food out into the forest it's best to use airtight containers as well just to reduce the odor as much as possible and if you do like to go out into the backcountry and even on the local trails we do recommend carrying wildlife spray or known as bear spray but it is effective on other wildlife too and so bear spray or wildlife spray is a very very strong pepper spray and for bears and cougars it contains capsaicin which is incredibly hot pepper and it's a deterrent it's only to be used in a very rare situation we have a close encounter with a bear and the bear does not leave in those kind of situations you would deploy this spray into the bear's face always into the bear's face and this spray is so effective because their sense of smell is so keen and effective at deterring and approaching bear than a gun would be and it's non-lethal as well so it teaches that bear not to approach people and in some cases very rare situations that save people's lives so it's an excellent tool now I've had hundreds of encounters with black bears in all sorts of situations I've moved them away from food sources I've had very very close surprise encounters and I've never ever had to deploy my bear spray so it's one of those things that you probably will never have to use it but it's good to have and it's good to know how to use it so there is more information on our website on bear spray and we do recommend carrying that here on the North Shore so bears in the neighborhood so the call today yesterday sorry about the bear in the community was in fact that it was assumed that the bear had actually been very close to a residential area and it's very normal for us to see bears travelling through residential areas here on the North Shore they often have no choice but to travel through the community in search of the next river or green space but we need to do our very best to make sure that we don't invite them to stay and we set boundaries from a safe place if we see bears in the community they're very intelligent, teachable animals and we can teach them where it's not acceptable to be and close to homes isn't safe for anybody especially our bears as I said encounters between people and black bears, negative encounters, physical encounters exceptionally rare but the consequence for bears is deadly when they find food in the community if you see a trap like this this is set by the government agency the conservation officer service and they manage our wildlife here on the North Shore and across British Columbia of course their role is not to conserve the lives of bears it's public safety and unfortunately many people believe that when a bear finds an unnatural food source like garbage or a bird feeder they get addicted to that food and it's absolutely not the case studies have shown that bears prefer natural foods but of course like any wild animal they will take food that is available to them now these traps are baited with garbage and molasses and when the bear is trapped the bear is taken to another location and very often the bear will be killed so across British Columbia every year between 500 and 600 black bears are killed last year on the North Shore 7 bears were killed and so a couple of situations where a bear will definitely be killed are if they've entered a property or a confined space that confined space could be an empty open garage could be an empty shed but if the bears enter that confined space that's not tolerated by the conservation officers a trap will be set and the bear will be killed another situation is any kind of property damage that's reported to them again not tolerated and of course if there was any kind of physical injury to a person that behaviour wouldn't be tolerated very rarely, very rarely there might be a short distance relocation where the bears move from the community to a green space could be two kilometres away and it's not really to give the bear a chance the bear will come back it's to give residents in the community an opportunity to secure what was attracting the bear in the first place now what we see every year on the North Shore is that within days of a bear being killed in an area another bear will take its place we have to end this cycle of tempting bears into the community with food allowing them to be killed and then repeating the cycle over and over again we can peaceably coexist with these animals it just takes a little bit of effort on our part and a big piece is securing our garbage so anything odorous is going to be very interesting to a bear so garbage, organics are the strongest most commonly reported attractants some of you live in West Vancouver where you might have small organics carts we really recommend that you keep them inside your home or a garage or a very very secure shed what we can do with our organics too is freeze anything odorous and that will help to reduce will keep the carts clean as well and put out those frozen items on the very morning of collection so we have bylaws across the North Shore about garbage set out time so nobody, no matter where you live on the North Shore you're not permitted to put garbage or organics or recyclables out at curbside until the morning of pickup and there is enforcement for that now so we're really very happy to work with the bylaw departments and all the different departments of the municipalities and we've really seen a huge increase in education and enforcement from the municipalities and that really shows the community that they value the lives of these animals and it's really important members of our wider community that we need to take care of and of course we do want to reduce the number of times that people open their door and see if a bear on the porch in the morning most people wouldn't want to see that so it does of course hugely reduce the amount of time that bears spend in the community if we don't provide them with food so things that are very attractive to bears would be meat bones and then in the garbage it would be things like dirty diapers so if you've got anything like that it needs to be stored inside your home or garage always and if you live in the district in North Vancouver we've got the lockable carts as you can see they're not bear proof in any way they're bear resistant but our bears can get into them very easily so we do ask you to please keep those inside a garage or secure shed as well and then bird feeders are very strong attractant so bird feeders, especially the seeds and sewers, thousands of calories this is often the first thing that the bear will find in the community is they'll find the bird feeders over the winter they do contribute to a lot of our late winter activity and then when the bird feeders being destroyed the bear will find the garbage and maybe pet food, maybe a dirty barbecue so very very strong attractants for such agile climbers it's almost impossible to hang a bird feeder where a bear can't access it we've had situations in West Vancouver where a bear has been on the roof of somebody's property to access a bird feeder so we ask that you don't hang bird feeders in bear country if you want to feed the birds we suggest putting a very small amount of seed on a plate when you're home to enjoy the birds and then bring that inside but these kind of feeders are the hummingbird feeders it's like a red bull energy drink for the bears nice and sugary they love that that will bring a bear much much too close to your house so please don't hang these in bear habitat and then fruit trees goodness me bears love any kind of fruit so fruit trees, the bird feeders the garbage, organics are the strongest attractants and bears have got excellent memories they will remember exactly where your fruit tree is when that fruit is ripe it's incredible we need to make sure that we prune our trees at this time of year to reduce the amount of fruit that they produce makes nice healthier fruit too and anything that's fallen to the ground needs to be collected daily if you can't manage a fruit tree here in bear country we do advise removing it and replacing it with a non-buried fruit tree you can install electric fencing if you like to grow fruit but you need to make sure there are no access points like branches or fences but electric fencing is an excellent way when it's maintained to keep a bear away from something doesn't hurt them, doesn't hurt us but it teaches that bear to avoid that space so if you've got chickens if you've got small pets that live outside rabbits, guinea pigs electric fencing is absolutely key it might also be mandatory in your municipality as well so chickens and chicken feed more people are inviting us into the community and they're very, very strong attractants other foods, so outdoor fridges and freezers every single year we get reports of bears being killed because they're finding outdoor freezers so remember their sense of smell is excellent freezers aren't designed to be bear proof even with chains on the bear can access these so these need to be kept inside a secure garage or very, very secure shed compost you absolutely can compost in bear country but you just need to make sure they aerate often add lots of brown materials just to reduce odor as much as possible we don't want to put eggshells in there that is a bear attractant so we can put everything else in there that usually would in the compost but oils, dairy we avoid those pet food so bears don't come into the community looking to eat cats and dogs they really don't see them as a food source but pet food is highly attractive to them so feed your pets inside always and don't store pet food in in sheds that aren't secure again this is something that comes up almost every year sometimes when a bear is more persistent again in entry to space there's a garage that's not got a very secure door if it's a very thin vinyl door or a shed that's not very secure and the bear is able to access that well they've access to confined space they've caused property damage that bear is going to be killed it's not a good situation for you to be in as well most people wouldn't want to be in a situation where they've got a bear on their property and inside a confined space the bear would just leave once they'd eaten the food but they would come back they would leave food very highly odorous and this is when we see them being more persistent things like fish fertiliser as well and grease from meats if you're storing those in insecure places you should expect bears to be trying to gain access to that because it's so odorous to them dirty barbecues so we need to clean the barbecue grill and grease trap every single time and don't leave food on a tended outside even on the deck make sure that you make always with that food when you're cooking the food when you're having food outside remember bears are passing through the community again every summer I get calls from people who are outside having food and a bear is wander through the garden and approach the table if you're in that kind of situation what we want to do is actually use our human dominance to teach the bear that that's not acceptable so what you would do in a situation if you're having food outside and the bear comes into the garden what you'd want to do get children and pets inside and then any adults stand outside you want to stand up you use a firm tone of voice bears are very intelligent and understand tone over volume and you just tell that bear to move on and they're very very intelligent remember they're going to listen they're not looking to get into a kind of confrontation that prevents that bear from accessing that unnatural food source and it teaches that bear not to approach people so if you do feel comfortable doing that that's the best thing that you can do rather than going inside and allowing the bear to eat the food every year again it's a very busy place to be on the North Shore for bear activity last year we got I think almost 1200 reports so it was a very busy year lots of different scenarios were going on very often what happens is people will be out in the garden and they'll just come inside and the bear will walk through the garden and that's because the bear knew that they were there and is trying to avoid them and that's why very often that happens but it's really important that we keep windows and garages and lower level doors closed unless we're in the immediate area because these animals are quite curious and we have had situations, especially last year during the heat wave where bears entered properties situations like something from a cartoon where a lady was cooling a pie in the kitchen and the door was wide open and the bear walked in and took the pie well that's a situation where the homeowner actually was not afraid she could tell that the bear was very calm and just after that food source but a situation where the trap was set and the bear was killed so making sure that you're in the room if the door is open to deter and inviting somebody else in and then it did just cover that but beehives as well, chickens need to be secured with electric fencing these are very very strong attractants and then petroleum products keeping those things stored inside a garage or shed rather than outside of your property food and vehicles so bears are very very good at finding even a small amount of food so it might be a stick of gum or a granola bar you need to make sure that your vehicles are free of food and garbage if you do have to store any kind of food or garbage in your vehicle leave it in the trunk and keep the windows and the doors locked bears can open car doors and if a bear enters a vehicle we had this happen last year we had this situation where there were granola bars left in the car the bear went into the car and the door closed behind them the bear was trapped for about 20 minutes wrote off the car the car was completely destroyed because of course the bear's long claws and the teeth and the bear was terrified and trying to exit the vehicle and what happened in that situation it was very early in the morning and the homeowner's very gingerly stepped out and the door and the bear bolted that's a negative experience that that bear has had the granola bars not worth that experience so we didn't see that repeated behavior they're smart and they don't want to get into negative situations like that but if it's easy and they can just pop in and out and grab the food we're going to see a repeat of that behavior that nobody wants to see and then food deliveries making sure that if you have food dropped off that there's somebody here throwing it inside or a neighbor or a secure place to make sure that you're not leaving food set out of your home all day or night and then Halloween treats too so bowls of candy and even pumpkins will bring bears much close to your house than I'm sure you would like so make sure that we display pumpkins inside and don't leave food the candy outside always make sure that that's inside so these are just some of the very common attractants that we see over the course of the season that are bringing bears close to homes that are contributing to the bears being killed in the community as well so I did mention about setting boundaries with these very teachable animals so if you're in a situation where a bear is on your property and you're inside and you can go to a safe place like a deck or a window we don't want you to stand there filming for a long time maybe take a quick picture we know it might be exciting but what we want to do is teach that bear not to get comfortable and so what we need to do is use again our human dominance and that's our voice and we're going to use a firm tone of voice when you're in a safe place with a bear you can make eye contact and what you would do is you go to the deck or the window and just be very very persistent with that firm tone of voice making eye contact you can clap if you want as well some people will bang pots and pans but what we've seen over the course of the past few years is that air horns and pots and pans aren't as effective as they used to be because bears are becoming accustomed to those loud noises but human voices they recognize and tone of a volume they recognize it's a nice firm harsh tone and just keep encouraging the bear to move don't expect them to run but don't expect them to stay and get comfortable if you're encouraging them to leave and that's the best thing that we can do now if the bear is eating something on your property it's going to be impossible almost to move them on you can try with your voice but don't expect them to leave that food sauce so wait until they've finished eating and then go in with that firm tone of voice and eye contact from a safe place and then of course remove or secure what was ever attracting the bear in the first place that's the best thing that we can do for these animals so if we have a close encounter and this can happen it can happen in residential areas it can happen on the trails maybe the bears being focused on eating wasn't quite sure that you were there we can have these very close encounters there are three things to remember and the first thing to do is to stay nice and calm so by nature bears black bears are calm and peaceful animals so if we stay nice and calm it helps the bear to stay calm as well remember the bear might need a moment just to figure out what's going on they might stand up remember that's not an aggressive posture it's curiosity so just take that deep breath try and stay nice and calm remember nice and calm with your body as well and then we're going to use our voice to talk to the bear remember this is the best tool that you've got identifies you as a person and also what we do when we use our voice we're going to use a nice calm tone and that calm tone communicates to that bear that you're not a danger to them so when we talk to the bear we want to look at them to focus our attention on what they're up to but we don't want to stare eye to eye and we're having a close encounter that could be read as a threat or as a challenge by the bear so focus your attention on their chest or on their legs it's absolutely fine if you look them in the eye for a second or two that's fine but focus your attention on their chest and calmly talk to that bear so think about what you might want to say to the bear it's what I'll say to the kids that calm tone of voice hey bear nice to see there whatever you might want to say and as you talk into the bear you slowly back away so remember nice and slow calm movements we're not going to make ourselves look big we don't need to be really loud because what we want to do is communicate I'm giving you space I'm giving you respect I'm not a danger to you so you back away to put that distance between you and the bear and to make sure that you can see what the bear is up to as well so stay nice and calm use a calm tone of voice and back away and give that bear space now there might be situations where a bear is walking towards you or it appears that they're walking towards you very often the bear just wants to take the route that you are on and maybe they've been pushed by another bear or by people or they just have been yielding to people all day and they've got somewhere to be and some bears remember quite comfortable with people at a distance and that distance like for us that personal space is different for every individual bear which is why we never step towards them always back away but if a bear is walking towards you and the bear isn't looking at you they're looking to the side they're looking beyond you what you can do in that situation then because you know that the bear isn't focusing an intent on approaching you it's just trying to get somewhere you do the same thing give the bear as much space as possible and allow them to pass in a very rare situation when a bear is focused on you and this is usually curious teenage bears and they're looking at you they're wanting to get close to you for some reason as I said it could be curiosity it could be trying to push you away from a space we don't want bears to push us around like that we need to teach them that they can't do that so if a bear comes close to you and is focused on you they're approaching your personal space this is when you need to be brave it's very rare that this happens but you need to stand your ground make yourself look big, make eye contact and use a firm tone hey no teach the bear not to get into your personal space and curious black bear behaviour is to get that too close when you use that firm tone they understand and they respond and they back away it's a great time to bring out your bear in that situation as well now I said that's very rare but it can sometimes happen most common scenario is just to stay calm, talk in any language in a calm tone and back away let's just move on now quickly to coyotes coyotes are active year round and most visible actually in the late winter and in the spring it's mating season for them right now so during the winter months coyotes are actually quite small quite scrawny but they get a nice big winter coat and they look very big and healthy most of people think they look like wolves so they're more visible at this time of year and as it's mating season they're out in search of a mate so we'll see multiple coyotes and it's normal now during the winter to see them during the daytime for the rest of the season they're typically more active at dusk and dawn but these animals are omnivores as well so they eat most things they'll climb into a fruit tree and eat fruit they actually are a risk to black bear cubs and other small mammals most of what they eat is other animal protein but they do eat garbage they do eat fruit and they're also around the community for them so it benefits coyotes to live a little bit closer to people because around people there are often lots of rats so if you live near a creek or if you've got unsecured garbage lots of spilled bird seed that's going to attract rodents and rats make up about 75% of a coyote's diet so in fact it's a really good thing to have them around it helps to control the rat population coyotes are very active at this time of year remember so they're mating and then what will happen is the female of the mating couple will actually go into a den and that den again can be very close to the community it could be in one of our parks golf courses are a great place because of all the rodents as well small forested areas are often a place where coyotes will den because there's an abundance of food there and it's safe as well without as many people going through like it would be on the trails and the female will give birth to pups in the spring usually around six pups and the male's responsibility during that period is to bring food back to his family and this is what he's looking out for mostly as rats so to reduce coyote activity close to homes we need to make sure that we're not attracting rodents so picking up that fallen fruit remember the coyote will eat fruit as well but the fruit attracts the rodents and that brings the coyotes fallen birdseed so birdseed always spills to the ground and birdseed attracts a lot of different critters and of course our garbage as well making sure that your garbage cans are nice and clean and secure to reduce activity close to your home we need to be mindful of our pets as well so coyotes will of course see cats and small unattended dogs as a food source so we do recommend keeping cats inside here on the north shore at all times of year, day and night so you can get nice fancy catios now you can train your cats to go out on leash like I do, they can still enjoy the outside but it's safer for them so remember coyotes and other animals that eat our domestic pets such as cougars and even bobcats can be active during the day so just bringing the pets in at night isn't the solution so just to keep everybody safe we do recommend keeping cats inside so just some tips on how to see if you've got coyote activities, it's a lot easier to look for these animal tracks once it's snowed or if it's been raining as I said it's nice and muddy so a coyote track is very similar to a dog track only the track is much narrower the front two claws of a coyote track are very narrow whereas a dog's claw marks are very wide and spread apart so you'll see these around the community quite often coyotes are pretty timid and quite shy and they're very good at hiding so many people will live with coyotes very very close proximity to them but they won't see them but we'll often find the tracks and coyotes scat coyotes will mark their territory on trails especially during mating season and during that time when they're taking care of the pups and they're really trying to alert other dogs not to use that space or to give them that space and they're trying to set those boundaries with their domestic pets who are a danger to them and so coyotes scat you'll find on the trails sometimes it's usually very very dry because of all the fur from the rodents that they eat very twisted you'll see some bone in there as well so that's what that looks like and as I said they are very timid they have some strange behaviors that people will interpret aggressive behavior but it's not, it's again curiosity so coyotes do stare a lot and that's not a threatening stare it's really just to see what you're up to are you going to get close to a food source that they might be protecting are you going to get close to their pups what they'll do as well very often very often it's people with dogs that will encounter coyotes so that's why again always recommending keeping dogs on a nice close leash that will help to reduce close encounters for people and wildlife as well and keep our pets and wild animals safe but coyotes will like to guide you away from an area so they do follow people with dogs and that's quite normal behavior it's not with an intent to make contact but it's to push you away from a space so the best thing is to just comply and walk away now if a coyote approaches you though a very very close range and they're independent on you it's very rare for that to happen but all we need to do is use a loud, firm voice you can clap, you can stomp on the ground and they'll usually run away they are very shy whenever you see a coyote if you see them in a community should always do that just clap and use your voice and just tell them to move on nothing too aggressive remember we don't want to be causing them to feel defensive around people but just setting those boundaries of not being not getting close to people and then cougars our biggest wild cat here on the North Shore so we have cougars and we have four cats cougars are very elusive very very rarely seen most cougar reports turn out to be coyotes but of course they do live here on the North Shore people do see them certainly with the increase of security cameras that people have around homes that's contributing to an increase in reports of all wildlife but it has picked up some cougars in the community as well so cougars are typically nocturnal they like to come out very late at night to avoid people so we might see those cougar reports coming on for 2-3am that's quite a common time but they can be seen during the daytime as well these animals are active year-round we do receive typically not this year but typically an increase in cougar reports over the late winter and a couple of reasons for that just they're more visible against the landscape and also they're following their main food source to lower elevations and so we see an increasing cat activity around residential areas usually bobcats and occasionally cougars over the winter and their main food source is deer so when deer travel down to lower elevations to find the grasses where we have no snow that's when we'll get the cougars coming into the community and so you might have situations too where much like vulnerable bears deer will congregate in busy spaces maybe if you're up at rice lake there are lots of deer around the picnic area and that's not because they want the picnic food but maybe there's a cougar close by that they're trying to avoid so again seeking safety a little bit around people and that's why we see deers in residential areas as well it's a little bit safer if they're trying to avoid a cougar so an adult cougar will eat one deer, one adult deer about every two to three weeks and they'll cash their food so if you ever see any dead wildlife in the forest make sure that you back away nice and slowly and leave the area if we're in one of our parks let's let one of the rangers know they can just monitor that area it could be a cougar cash usually what they'll do with that animal kill is they'll cover it with branches and leaves to kind of cover that up and it's rare to find them but certainly don't approach any dead wildlife in the forest and snowshoe hair is on the menu as well and then these are the smaller mammals so again another reason why we don't want to be encouraging rodents and raccoons into the community with food that brings coyotes that predate on the raccoons it brings cougars that predate on the raccoons so feeding a wildlife really has a huge impact and brings many more animals than people would intend into the community so this is why we don't want to feed any of our wildlife because tempting as cute as the raccoons are when they put their hands like this we don't want to encourage them raccoons are actually endangered cats and small dogs as well so don't encourage them and again like with with the coyotes keeping pets inside that will help to reduce cougar activity close to homes they are opportunities sadly for those wild animals and they will bring them into the community and again with dogs, dogs and cougars keeping your dog in a nice close leash so that that dog doesn't pressure defensive behaviour maybe from a mother cougar or is not seen as a food source and again if you're walking with dogs we really recommend that you take in bear spray with you as well it's effective on cougars too so cougar tracks so no claw marks so cats have got retractable claws a little bit different from a dog track in the sense that a dog track or a canine track has got two lobes at the bottom you can see here that the cougar track has got three lobes at the bottom of the paw pad and two at the top quite hard to find these tracks but I do find them where I am in the Indian river area quite often and scat if you've had the pleasure of cleaning the cat litter tray bobcat and cougar scat is very similar to domestic cat scat very segmented lots of big bones usually in the cat scat they're able to digest much bigger bones than a coyote it's usually full of fur as well from the deer so look out for these signs and if you were to ever meet a cougar it would be exceptionally rare but in most situations if a cougar is visible to you you see that cougar the cougar will usually run they're very very very shy and encounters between people and cougars are exceptionally rare we don't hear about close encounters at all to the society over the 15 years that we've been running the society we've not heard about any close encounter any negative encounters but if you were to spot one of these cats what you want to do is actually use your voice again remember a very good tool that you won't leave at home you want to use a nice firm voice and with a cougar you want to be always backing away as well so don't stand still always be moving away from that cougar now if the cougar doesn't run and the cougar approaches you you've got to be very very brave and remember that cougar attacks on people are exceptionally rare over the course of a 100 year period across North America I think it's around 30 people being killed by cougars so many opportunities it's not in their nature those attacks were anomalies but if a cougar does approach you that's when you need to make yourself look really big you maintain eye contact and use a deep firm voice and you continue to back away you would also use and deploy the bear spray as well or the wildlife spray if the cougar got within close range if the cougar ever made physical contact you would fight back with all that you had and aim for the eyes and the nose the most sensitive part of the cat hopefully you will never need to know that and you'll probably walk past cougars in the forest more times than you know without ever seeing them I look for these animals often there are people that research cougars that have never seen them in the wild I've never seen one but I do find a scat I've been woken up by a cougar call in the forest behind me at night a mating call one winter and so they are around but very rarely seen so thank you so much for your time this evening I do welcome any questions that you might have and I'm very grateful for you for joining me this evening and thank you again to West Vancouver Library Excellent, thank you so much so if anyone has any questions please go ahead and type those into the Q&A and we do have a few more minutes we have a couple minutes for questions I'm just curious to know if you're traveling with small children if you're out hiking or you're out in the community and you have small children are any of these animals more likely to become aggressive or more likely to attack if you have a small person with you well not that we've heard of on the North Shore but certainly cougars to small children and that's because small children are a little bit sad to say they make high pitch noises and they're running fast and they trigger that chase instinct so thank you for bringing that up if you've got small children and you're out on the trails keep them nice and close always keep them close and in front of you and teach your children what to do if they see a bear as well so you can practice as a family have one person designated to be talking to that bear so that you're not all trying to tell the bear a story at the same time when you're going out as a family before that hike okay mom's going to talk to the bear today if we see a bear on the trail and what's she going to say and just practice with your family so that they know what to do and they feel comfortable should that situation happen that's good to know I think we do have a question but I can't answer a raised hand so if you can just type your question into the Q&A on the bottom of your screen that would be great you know someone did raise their hand so hopefully you can type the question into the Q&A so what happens if multiple people are talking all at the same time because you said it's good if just one person is the sort of designated talker well it's just easier especially if you have small children just to make sure that the bears not too confused they can just kind of focus on one person and they're listening to that one voice and then with children they might be screaming or shouting so you want to really teach your children if you're in a situation when you meet a bear or another animal on the trail you guys are going to be nice and quiet and we're going to have mom or dad or whoever it might be is going to talk to the animal today and we're going to talk in this nice calm voice because with bears as well remember in most situations you want to communicate nice and calm people scream and they run away from bears all the time but that's not what we want to do we want to really try and teach these animals that we're a bit more predictable when you encounter us we're going to be nice and calm we're going to show you going to give me space I think yeah we're much more unpredictable than most of the animals that we'll encounter on the trail that's for sure and they get mixed messages from people all the time so you don't know what experience that bear just had I'll have people that call me that say they launched bearbangs on the trail because they wanted to mount a mic and the bear was eating berries so that bear has just been harassed and scared away by a pyrotechnic and pushed into your path and then you're screaming and all big in their faces it's not that it would potentially create a negative situation but it just it's harassment to the animals and we want you to feel comfortable as well knowing that we don't need to be big we don't need to scream and be aggressive towards these animals it should be get your heart racing a little bit that's for sure but a nice calm pleasant experience okay thank you alright so a question here I often hike alone and I occasionally hit my hiking poles together is this enough I would say using your voice is much much better because a bear or another animal can identify that sound just human so making noise all the time with doing things like that as you're moving around but you making sure that you're talking out loud as well so I hike alone as well a lot and it's always when I'm talking out loud like to the bushes hey bear hey cougar that's always when I bump into someone I've not seen someone for a little while but that's just how it is and you might feel a little bit silly but it's just best to use your voice and talk to the birds okay what if a bear is making huffing noises at you again that's just a way that a bear communicates that they want space so you've surprised them you've stressed them out and they're asking you to move away so huffing noises when bears drool a lot that's stress signals that's I'm stressed you're too close you just surprise me and all we need to do is communicate I'm going to give you that space great do you recommend bear bells I don't recommend bear bells I was probably the first thing I bought and I moved to Canada thought it was really cool but pretty useless actually the sound doesn't travel very far and again doesn't identify you as a person so your voice really is best interesting okay good to know and so if you do see any of these animals who is it best to call is it best to call you is it best to call the conservation society what's the best course of action well of course I will say that I prefer you to call the North Shore Black Bear Society because we've got extensive knowledge on bear behavior that we'll be able to share with you we can also share resources with the community and we work with our parks departments as well so we can make sure that everybody in those areas is aware of the activity and it helps us to collect that very valuable data so that we can do our outreach and make sure that the animals and the residents and visitors are comfortable and safe so we would prefer you to reach out to us but that's your choice excellent alright well thank you so much Lucy for your time and for being with us tonight I'm so grateful this was so fascinating for me as well I did not grow up in bear country so this is really interesting to me I did grow up in cougar country but we call them mountain lions in California same animal thank you so much everyone for joining us this evening I'm so grateful to everyone and we will post this presentation on our YouTube channel so you can pick up any of the details that you might have missed and again thank you Lucy and thank you so much everyone have a great evening