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Apple picking project helps protect bears

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LAKE COUNTY – Bears are hungry this time of year, and a program through the Great Bear Foundation is working to reduce human and bear interaction caused by the supply of tasty domestic fruit. 

“Bears enter a period of hyperfacia where they eat a ton of calories before hibernation,” said Germaine White, information and education specialist for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. “This time of year, before the snow falls, bears are putting on as many calories as they can. It’s a critical time for them.”

And it’s important that they eat the right food.

“We hope they are looking for natural foods like berries and insects, things they traditionally eat,” she said.

When a bear sniffs out apples rotting on the ground, they move in for an easy meal, and the problems start.

“People will report the bears and they can end up being relocated or killed,” she said. “Bad people behavior results in bear problems. When people fail to secure attractants like trash and fruit, it results in problems with bears.”

White recommends three precautionary measures including keeping garbage secure until it’s taken to the dump, picking up domestic fruit like apples, and putting an electric fence around chickens.

The people at the Great Bear Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to bear conservation and their habitats around the world, started the bear and apple program based in Missoula to help prevent problems, noting that an apple a day may keep the doctor away, but certainly not bears.

“You may enjoy watching a bear eat apples in your backyard, but once the bear has entered your neighborhood, all kinds of potential trouble can await, mainly for the bear, but also for you and your neighbors,” they noted. “It is far easier to prevent bears from getting food from humans than to correct the problem after it’s happened.”

Each year, the foundation coordinates volunteers to help clean up the fruit or people bring it in themselves. The foundation takes the unwanted fruit and stores it behind at electric fence. The fruit is then donated to the Missoula Food Bank, the Poverello Center, given to other interested people or pressed into apple cider.

“Last year, we picked 5,900 pounds of apples,” said Elissa Chott, foundation office manager and outreach coordinator.

Most of the apple picking is done to detract black bears from the domestic fruit trees in the Rattlesnake Valley, but the foundation travels to many places even north into Flathead County. 

“People are welcome to volunteer or free to go out on their own and pick apples,” she said. “We just want the apples cleaned up before the bears get to them.”

The Great Bear Foundation is teaming up with Western Cider in Missoula to press apples donated by the bear foundation and people in the community along with neighboring communities as part of the Great Bear Apple Drive in an attempt to keep the bears from scavenging for apples. 

“We are taking as much fruit as we can get,” said Ashley Quast, Western Cider employee.

The pressed apples are used to create a batch of cider called the Great Bear Community Cider. For every 40-pounds of apples or pears that are donated, people get a $5 gift certificate to use towards the purchase of any of the ciders in the shop.

Apples in good condition, not rotten or bruised, can be taken to 501 North California St., from 12-6 p.m., seven days a week. The project will last until Oct. 31. The cider made with local apples from the bear project will be released in early 2018. Ten percent of the proceeds go to the Great Bear Foundation.  

“This is about bringing the community together and giving back to a nonprofit,” she said. “It’s an excellent use of resources.”  

People can volunteer to pick apples, drop off apples, or donate funds to help the Great Bear Foundation protect bears and their habitats by calling the foundation at 406-829-9378 or visiting their website: www.greatbear.org. 

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