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WildSafeBC hosted bear spray workshop in Peachland on Sunday

Prepping for bear encounter

Sarita Patel

As part of the Peachland Trails Awareness Day, WildSafeBC hosted a bear spray workshop on Sunday afternoon at Heritage Park. 

Participants were taught about wildlife safety, along with how and when to use bear spray, and even gain hands-on practice using inert training spray.

"It was excellent, very clear instructions and you hope that stick with you at the moment that you need it," laughed Diane Watson a participant of the workshop.

"Terrific, I like the hands-on demo part, it's easy to just to sort of listen to it, but you don't have it until you picked up the canister and used it and now I feel confident," said Jim Girndaly another participant who came out for the session.

WildLifeBC Community Coordinator Meg Bjordal, tells me it’s not the difference between black and grizzly bears you need to worry about, it’s their behaviour.

"When we're talking about bear encounters it's probably less important whether you're encountering a black bear or a grizzly bear, and more important what the bear's behaviour is - so the question you're asking are you encountering a defensive bear or a predatory bear," explains Meg Bjordal, community coordinator for WildSafeBC Okanagan Westside.

"Defensive bear is usually going to be making a lot of noise, so they'd pop their jaws, they might paw the ground or maybe doing a lot of vocalization. A defensive bear is saying, hey you're too close to me, I'm uncomfortable with this distance between us."

"Versus a predatory bear is a bear that very interested in you, they're probably going to be more quiet, they might even stalk or follow you. Now, a predatory bear is very unlikely to encounter, especially in this part of the province typically you'd see predatory bears in areas where food resources are less available - so that would be more northern parts of the country," says Bjordal.

But despite them not being in this region, she believes it's important to know the difference an be prepared with bear spray. WildSafeBC has an acronym for when you're ready to use the spray which is S.P.R.A.Y. which stands for Stop. Prepare. Remove the Safety. (build) A wall. Yield.

Which prompted Girndaly to say, "I'm going to go buy a can of bear spray... If you're a hiker go get one of these cans of bear spray"

For more information or if you'd like to see when the next workshops will be available check out WildSafeBC's Facebook Page.



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