Sudbury needs policy to address bears, police board chair says

Sudbury is facing an influx of bear complaints from residents and the city lacks a real plan to handle the crisis, according to a local police board chair member.

The Greater Sudbury Police Servicehas received more calls about bears this summer than they have in the past five years combined . As CBC News previously reported, the complaints arehaving a serious impact on the force.

For this reason, police board chair member Gerry Lougheed is pushingfor a new policy as well as a formalposition to deal with less urgent bear calls so the force isn'tburdened with the large quantity of complaints.

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"Everybody's passing motions, and everybody is forming committees and everybody is saying they're talking about a bear policy," Lougheed said.

"And now we're in 2015 with a crisis. A crisis of killing bears, of neighbours being very afraid for their children and family members, of bears destroying property. Where's the policy?"

Sudbury police Chief Paul Pederson said he wants to ask the provincial government for additional funding to address the situation.

"Thirty per cent of the calls in the province are here in Sudbury," Pederson said."I think it's perfectly reasonable to be asking for 30 per cent of the resources."

The police chief also said sending members of his force to deal with bear complaints doesn't address how they ended up there in the first place.

Lougheed asked publiclyif this issue should even be handled by law enforcement.

"Is it a police issue? Should it be a police issue? And is there better ways of handling that resource?"

A new committee will meet for the first time this week to try to find a solution for the high number of bears in the area.

Three years ago, officials from the city, police and Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry met to develop a bear policy, but the meeting didn't produce any solutions, the police boardsaid.

However, it now appears the crisis has reached a boiling point.Nine bears have been shot this year in Sudbury and police were responsible for eight of them. The force has received more than 1,200 calls and 200 man hours of police time has been allocated to the issue in 2015.