Posted on 08/23/2010 10:45:30 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
FOURTEEN black bears that had grown accustomed to a quiet life in the company of an eccentric pair of cannabis farmers may have to be destroyed.
The bears have acquired a taste for dog food.
Deep in the mountains of British Columbia, but only a few kilometres north of the rapidly expanding marijuana markets of the US, a detachment of Royal Canadian Mounted Police stumbled on the docile and apparently good-natured bears while raiding a remote cabin on a tip-off late last month.
They also found a pot-bellied pig rummaging for food with the bears near the cabin above Christina Lake and a raccoon napping in a bedroom. It was, a police spokesman said, a "bit of an odd situation".
What might have been merely a scenic drug bust has developed into a troubling tale of errant human beings and endangered beasts.
British Columbian provincial law requires that tame bears or those too used to human food be destroyed before they threaten people. Hundreds of black bears, which are abundant throughout Canada, are killed each year by police marksmen.
Dave Webster, a wildlife conservation officer in whose hands the bears' fate now rests, has said he will have to order that they be shot if they fail to reintegrate into the wild. By feeding the animals pet food instead of leaving them to follow their instincts, the marijuana growers had effectively handed them a death sentence, Mr Webster said.
Police said the bears "just sat around watching" as the raid proceeded and, in one case, climbed on to a squad car, looked around and then slid off again.
A police spokesman said they seemed to subsist mainly on dog food and vegetables.
The owners of the cabin have not been named but one of them has been identified by locals as the "bear lady". She drives an old pick-up truck and visits the town at Christina Lake occasionally to do odd jobs and buy groceries.
"She probably trusts (animals) more than humans," one resident said. "A lot of people do."
The other cabin dweller, a man in his 40s or 50s, emerged from the building during the police search shooing a bear in front of him. Both have been arrested, charged with drug offences and released on bail. The search party found as many as 2300 marijuana plants worth more than $US1 million ($1.1m) growing in thick brush around the property.
Growing conditions for the drug in southern British Columbia, as in the northwestern US, are close to perfect, with hot, dry summers but high average rainfall in a vast wilderness seldom visited by police.
Affirmative action.
This suggests that they partook regularly of the cash crop in question.
If true, then one thing's for sure: They don't dare relocate them to Marin County.
“I don’t think that the ranger’s gonna like this, Yogi.”
A tisket, a tasket, a pick-a-nick basket!
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