“Although it is standard practice to ensure the culvert-style live traps are placed in shaded areas, checked frequently and nearby residents encouraged to call day or night if a bear enters, it could still take some time for officers to reach the area,” said the agency at the time.ĭolson says confronting increasingly hot summers necessitates a permanent change in the way B.C. Last year, during the late June heat dome, the BCCOS’s Lower Mainland region said it would stop using the traps - which resemble large open-sided barrels laid on a trailer with metal gates on either end.
Several municipalities have already put out heat alerts and in some parts of the province temperatures are expected to climb past 40 C.ĭolson told Glacier Media this is the second time her organization has called on the province to end the use of culvert-style bear traps during heat waves. The call to put a hold on trapping bears comes as temperatures soar across much of B.C. When the state wildlife agency responded, officers found the bear slumped over the centre console of the vehicle, its paw stretched out toward garbage and an empty pop can on the floor.
Temperatures inside the car were thought to have reached up to 60 C. In an example of the animal’s vulnerability to heat, Dolson pointed to a tragic case of a bear that was trapped last month in an unlocked car outside a rental cabin Tennessee’s Smokey Mountains. “And yet for some reason, we think that a large black mammal that is very sensitive to heat can somehow endure being in a hot space with no water or sufficient air or mobility.” There is no question about it,” said Sylvia Dolson, co-chair of the BC Bear Alliance.
“It's just no different from leaving dogs and kids in cars, and everybody understands that. In an email to two senior managers at the BC Conservation Officer Service and a veterinarian with the Ministry of Forests wildlife branch, the BC Bear Alliance called for the province to approve “a standing order to close all bear traps during extreme weather conditions.” wildlife advocacy group is calling on the province’s conservation officer service to ban the use of culvert-style bear traps during extreme heat events. It often happens in these extreme events, where a large population of something like mussels can die," Pinsky said.A B.C.
"Species are shifting towards the poles of the Earth at about 60 kilometers per decade, and it doesn't happen slowly, bit by bit. Malin Pinsky, an associate professor of marine biology at Rutgers University, said the extreme heat contributes to a "massive reorganization of ocean life." The die-off could have ripple effects beyond the shore "If it happens that frequently, the system won't have time to recover in between the die-offs," he said. Though heat waves have affected marine life in the past, Harley said temperatures reaching more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit like they did last weekend in the Pacific Northwest are "exceptionally rare." But with climate change, he's seen estimates from other scientists that similar heat waves could start occurring once every five to 10 years. Harley has been tracking mussels and other sea creatures in the aftermath of the heat wave that hit the Pacific Northwest.Ĭhristopher Harley/University of British Columbia