Photo: Jen Sztupovszky

Bears aren’t quite settled in yet for their long winter's nap, as one Summerland resident spotted a teen black bear wandering through and hanging out in the backyard on Monday night. 

Jen Sztupovszky and her husband were out on their balcony and heard some loud noises coming from the backyard. 

“Our neighbours are really close, so we thought it was the neighbour just dragging something through his yard,” Sztupovszky said. 

“And then my husband goes, 'Why is the neighbour at our shed?'”

After taking out their phone flashlights and looking around, the couple spotted the young black bear roaming through their yard. 

“He was there and he was heading up the tree. He made a weird hissing noise and we just left him alone...It sat up in the tree for over two hours,” she said. “It's a little late to be seeing a bear, usually they'd be hibernating by now.” 

Bears think about going to den after the first major snowfall when the temperature drops down below zero for a week or so, but Zoe Kirk, RDOS public works projects coordinator said that in the case of an Okanagan, they tend to be out a little longer. 

“It's not uncommon for bears to be out at this time,” Kirk explained. “We have bountiful fruit sometimes late in the season, picking the pink ladies, plums and grapes off the vine. So we've kind of extended the bear season artificially in some cases because food is still abundant and in the case of this year, the weather has also cooperated and been a beautiful, not too cold fall.”

The RDOS encourages WildSafeBC recommendations when responding to bears, making sure they’re not loitering if spotted. If a bear is in your backyard, it's recommended to make loud noises, like banging some pots and pans together, to ward them off. 

Sztupovszky saw the black bear in her yard move on after a few hours.

“That's the first one we've seen,” Sztupovszky said. “[I was] a little bit scared and kind of excited. We live in bear country right, we've got to be bear aware.”

“We just wanted to make people aware that there was a bear in the area.” 

Reminders include to not leave anything in your backyard that could lure a bear over or encourage it to stay, including garbage, compost, or fruits left on the ground.

“Anything that is going to pull a bear off its regular natural food source and into your yard to have a meal.”

The Sztupovszky’s didn’t see the bear rummaging through their things, and expects he just came wandering through since their house backs up onto Giant's Head Mountain.

“He obviously came over the fence cause the fence was a little broken.”

Sztupovszky didn’t report the incident to conservation officers since the bear didn’t stick around for long, but the neighbourhood knew there was a visitor. 

“If it continues to loiter for more than 24 hours, that's when you put in a call,” Kirk explained, adding that it's also important if it’s a highly densely populated area or there’s a safety concern.

“It certainly doesn't mean that a call to the RAPP (Report All Poachers and Polluters) line is going to have that bear destroyed, not by a long stretch. It's amazing what can happen when a community gets on board….They're out there to conserve wildlife and work with the community, a call to the line is not going to necessitate a bear being killed.” 

The Wildlife Alert Reporting Program (WARP) with WildSafeBC has a map available online to track different wildlife in the area that's been reported.