In thinking about the recent necessary but unfortunate death of the huge bear by the Fish & Game Dept, it certainly seems like the available easy trash can food at the Waterville Valley Town Square is the problem. Fish & Game promotes their "A fed bear is a dead bear" safety program and suggests for home owners to bring in their outdoor bird feeders. And, the Town of Waterville Valley requires that every one of the numerous, like maybe 100 different dumpsters in town, be bear proof. Bear proof means they have locks or latches which strongly deter bears when people remember to use them.
Over at the Town Square, there's aproximately four or five different 32 gallon trash deposit cans, made of rubbermaid plastic, and the bears quickly learn to tip them over and dig through the trash for left over food.The bears show up very regularly each night. The area is basically an outdoor food court with about five different food businesses that sell take -out pizza, ice cream, sandwiches, buritos, and chocolate to the xc skiers, bicyclers, hockey players, kayakers, swimmers, and vacationers.
Knowing that "a fed bear is a dead bear" and that the unsecure large plastic trash deposit style trash cans have been in place for ten plus years, then what is the basis for the problem here........is it the the trash cans or the bears?
Seems like they need to figure out some bear proof trash litter cans, just as the Town has required bear proof dumpsters. As bears will always be bears, and easy to get discarded pizza, buritos, chocolate, ice crean and sandwiches will add up to more bears needing to be destroyed by Fish & Game.
Now, building a trash-litter deposit can that is bear proof is probably not an easy thing to do, as the bear proof dumpsters are built of very sturdy welded steel and the trash cans are built of trash can plastic.
So, what's a bear to do? ...
www.watervillevalley.org