A bumper crop of berries have been keeping bears out of residential neighbourhoods over the past few weeks.
“If the berries to well, we don’t get a lot of incidents in the residential areas because they rely on their natural food sources.” said Dave Bakker with the Northern Bear Awareness Society
“Residential incursions seem to be down at this point, but they are probably going to start picking up very soon again, mid August. We are a little ahead of fruit trees being ripe, and that is going to draw the bears back into the neighbourhoods.”
Bakker added that there has been a small jump in bear encounters in the woods due to more people getting outdoors.
“The first thing we can always recommend… is make your presence known in the forest. You don’t have to go screaming through the trees like a maniac or anything but travel in a group and carry on a conversation.”
He added that bears typically retreat into the woods during the hot parts of the day to stay cool.