I want to talk a little bit about the work that I am doing with CLUC through facebook. On a daily basis I update the page and post links and informatino regarding backyard chickens and making them legal in different cities around the world. Well about a week ago we congratulated North Vancouver for finally succeeding in their efforts to bring the chickens home as they were able to have their backyard chickens ordinance passed with a 5-2 vote in favor of the ordinance. I am slightly jealous of their ability to raise eight hens, two higher than our limit, but congratulations was owed one way or another as this has been a two year long issue for them.
A little background information on North Vancouver. Back in 2010, they started their movement towards achieving higher self-sufficiency with plans for local city farms, and ordinances to allow personal urban farming on properties with animals such as chickens and even bees. In 2011, North Vancouver voted in favor of an ordinance allowing multi-resident properties to keep up to 100,000 honey bees. But North Vancouver is also an area teeming with natural life and what does one often find in the woods up north? Bears. So far this year, 10 black bears have been killed due to their aggressive actions towards humans. In North Vancouver the police and animal control have to decide when its in the best interest of the bear as well as the general public to put down a bear. All 10 instances, both parties agreed that it was in everyone's best interest.
Well earlier today, the North Shore Outlook published an article where a member of the North Shore Black Bear Society commented his thoughts on the new chicken ordinance that was passed a week ago. Webb was reported commenting things like, "Absolutely chicken coops are an attractant [to bears]" and "[Webb] has seen first-hand the damage caused by a bear attack on an illegal chicken coop in West Vancouver where hen-keeping is not allowed, as well as bear attacks on other enclosures housing rabbits and even pigeons on the North Shore".
Interesting because when searched, there is no record in the news of any rogue bear attacks on illegal chicken coops in the West Vancouver area. In fact the most recent bear attack was on a woman and her dog in her back yard. The mother bear was provoked into attacking as unbeknownst to the homeowner, two baby cubs had stumbled into the line of trees bordering her backyard. Both parties made it out of the conflict fine by the way.
The thing that stands out the most about the article is just how little Webb knows about the ins and outs of raising backyard chickens. He goes on to say that, "If you keep chickens, you should go and get an electric fence; likewise with beehives" and " cultivating urban agriculture — even fruit-bearing trees — can be dangerous to both people and bears if certain precautions aren’t taken" and lastly "“And if people have fruit trees and want to keep them, they should put an electric fence around it. If they don’t want to do that, cut the trees down, it’s as simple as that."
I will agree with Webb on one single point. The secuirty of your hens is of upmost importance. They have been domesticated for so long that many of them don't know how to fend for themselves against predators even their own size let alone the size of a bear. So it is up to us to provide them with safe housing that is predator proof. But I am not in any way agreeing with him that by keeping hens will further attract even more instances of run ins with bears. Instead of spending his time whining and complaining about things he considers to be a hazard, why not use his precious time to come up with another solution such as creating a forest preserve that can be maintained and monitored at all times to provide the bears with a secure and closed environment that they can thrive in while also providing further protection to North Vancouver and its residents? What do you think?
Ciao xo
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