PHOTO: USFWS
DOWNED FENCES
A DANGER TO BEARS
In July, federal agency Wildlife Services set a bear
trap at Lane County Waste Management’s Rattlesnake
Road facility without consulting Patti Hansen, man-
ager of the facility. Hansen says that the bear trap
was set while she was on vacation and that she had
the trap removed before any bears were trapped and
killed.
The fences at the Rattlesnake Road disposal facility
are in a continuous state of disrepair, which encourages
bears and coyotes to climb through the fence and forage in
the waste facility, according to Brooks Fahy of Predator De-
fense. He says the facility’s managers were “baiting wildlife
and doing nothing to mitigate it” when they failed to pre-
vent animals from entering the premises and instead set a
bear trap.
While she is aware of the fence problem, Hansen says
that nightly vandalism prevents the facility from having se-
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cure fences. “We fi x them as soon as we can,” she says. “We walk the perim-
eter constantly. It’s a never-ending battle.”
Fahy says he is also concerned about the waste facility’s relationship with
Wildlife Services, a federal animal control agency that sometimes competes
with local animal control businesses. Kevin Christensen, Wildlife Services’
assistant state director, says that the agency set the live bear trap in response
to a request from Lane County Waste Management and reports of bear sight-
ings in the surrounding area.
“We did not take any bears on site,” Christensen says. “We put the trap
out, and we later determined that we were safe to go in and remove the trap.”
He says that if a bear had been caught, he was unsure whether Wildlife Ser-
vices would have relocated or killed the bear after capture.
Both Hansen and Christensen say that bears were not a problem at this
facility, and they have not caused problems since the trap was removed.
Fahy says that using non-lethal methods of mitigation, like electric fences,
are considerably more humane and cost-effective. “It’s easy to keep bears out
of places with electric fences, and that’s why we need a permanent solution
to this problem,” Fahys says. “It doesn’t have to involve the destruction of
wildlife. There is just no excuse for this.” — Amy Schneider
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eugeneweekly.com • December 27, 2012
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