Bear sightings down this summer in Sudbury

Bears in Sudbury, Ont.,seem to be sticking to the bush instead of roaming the city this summer, at least according to statistics.

Since April, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry has received 410 calls to itsBear Wise reporting line. There were 500 calls received during the same time period last year.

"Overall it's been a fairly average bear season," said Jeremy Inglis, manager of the Bear Wise program.

• 1,700 nuisance bear calls prompt committee to find answers

In previous yearsreports about nuisance bears have beenextremely high. For example in 2015, Sudbury Policy received 1,700 phone calls regarding nuisance bears. That prompted the city to create a bear policy committee.

Better berry crop helping to reduce reports

Before May of this year, there were 200 bear sightings reported.

"It was fairly busy in the Sudbury area, and then around the beginning of July, natural food started to become available," Inglis said.

An abundance of natural food sources including blueberries and strawberries caused bears to shifttheir attention from other food sources within the city limits, like garbage or bird-feeders.

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Inglishwarned that now that the season is ending, bears will turn their attention to fall food sources like hazelnuts, mountain ash and acorns. They may also start looking at the local apple crop.

"Hopefully people are picking the ripe fruit off their apple trees, and picking up any apples that fall on the ground," he said.

Bear technicians surveying natural food sources

Sudbury's four MNRF bear technicians have been conducting natural food surveys, to help predict bear behaviour.

"Natural foods are critical to understanding what's happening with bears," Inglissaid. "This helps us predict what bears are doing, and also what to predict in the future."

"There's a critical correlation between human-bear conflicts, and abundance of natural foods."

• Sudbury's nuisance bear problem gets extra help from the province

In the spring,the province hired two additional bear technicians for Sudbury, to help address the nuisance bear problem. Sudbury now has the highest number of technicians of any district in the province.

The MNRF will do an assessment at the end of the season to decide whether or not to keep the two positionsInglissaid

Calls to the city also down this year

Sudbury city councillorAl Sizer, who sits on the bear policy committee, says the city has also received fewer calls about bears this summer, although there are still plenty of sightings on the Report-a-Bear website.

"We are seeing a lot of bear sightings we have our Report-a-Bear website, and those numbers are still fairly high," Sizersaid.

"But we're not receiving the calls and the concerns as we were in the previous two years."

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Sizer attributes part of the decrease in nuisance bears to public education about prevention, including three Bear Wise billboards that were erected around the city.

"We're finding that people are voluntarily doing things," Sizersaid. "They are taking care of their trash and not putting it out the night before,and making sure that they're [using] closed containers."

"We really feel that the education part of it has certainly helped."