Humans blamed for enticing bears out of hibernation on southern Vancouver Island<\/p>\n
Published 8:00 am Saturday, January 10, 2026<\/p>\n
Vancouver Islanders are often surprised to see bears wandering through neighbourhoods in the middle of winter. The sight raises the question of whether the Island\u2019s bears don\u2019t go into hibernation.<\/p>\n
To clear the doubts, Black Press Media talked to Mollie Cameron, the president of Wild Wise Society. Her explanation of the issue circles back to humans.<\/p>\n
According to Cameron, the bears on the Island don\u2019t actually hibernate the way they do in other parts of British Columbia.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, they enter what is called torpor, a lighter and more flexible state of dormancy where they can wake up and become active if conditions allow.\u201d<\/p>\n
While colder temperatures do play a role in bear dormancy, Cameron emphasized that food availability is the real deciding factor. During winter, natural food sources such as fruits, vegetation and salmon runs disappear.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when we see bears active in winter, it\u2019s often because they\u2019re accessing food they shouldn\u2019t be, because of human-provided attractants like garbage, bird seed, or compost.\u201d<\/p>\n
She went on to explain that since bears can rely on these artificial food sources, they don\u2019t have a reason to retreat to dens and conserve energy. Human-caused food sources encourage them to keep coming back instead of going to sleep.<\/p>\n
Cameron was clear about the fact that keeping bears away from neighbourhoods is a human responsibility. Simple steps like securing garbage in a garage or bear-proof containers is one of the most effective actions to be taken, according to the expert.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know people say the garbage smells. But is storing your garbage outside worth an animal\u2019s life?\u201d she questioned.<\/p>\n
She elaborated on more actions that can be taken to curb the furry animal from coming back. She suggests removing bird feeders during the winter, properly securing compost, and practising responsible animal husbandry, such as housing livestock in barns or enclosed structures overnight.<\/p>\n
Cameron also stressed the importance of community cooperation and holding the neighbours accountable in the attempt.<\/p>\n
While provincial legislation already requires attractants to be secured, Cameron believes municipalities can do more. \u201cI\u2019d like to see every municipality adopt a strong attractant bylaw. That local support helps reinforce the message and strengthens our ability to truly coexist with wildlife,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Humans blamed for enticing bears out of hibernation on southern Vancouver Island Published 8:00 am Saturday, January 10,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-402426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}