Silver Star Bear Stewardship

09/07/2026

An great horned owl ate my chicken last week. Do I kill the owl? No.
A raccoon ate my chicken this month, do I kill the raccoon? No.
A bobcat ate my chicken last year, did I kill the bobcat? No.
A bear ate my chicken this morning.......
See the pattern?
Please stop calling COS to deal with your unsecured livestock.

09/06/2026

If you are not home, please lock your house and buildings. If you are home, please scare bears away from your property.

Bears are getting desperate and if you leave your house unattended, you may end up with a bear in your kitchen.

All deck doors, dog/cat doors should be locked and secured when you are not in your house.

Please continue to report bear sightings daily so we can alerat neighbours when bears are around.

09/03/2026

Still looking for helpers at Silverstar. Let us know if you can watch an area until November. The bears will appreciate it and so will we!

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1XRrlsdyMwAjG9lhJXN1VWSMopAF7-yU&usp=sharing

08/29/2026

BEAR AMBASSADORS NEEDED

📍 Want to help?
Add your area to the map below and label it with your name. Simply use the “Add Marker” button at the top of the page(the button that looks like a pin) and add your name as the label.

We need people to find bear attractants on a daily basis and help us remove them. Let us know what is out there and where bear attractant problems are happening.

💬 If you’d like to connect with us about this, message us here.

Every little bit helps. ❤️

We want to do everything we can to prevent bears from getting into garbage at SilverStar and help keep both our community and our bears safe.

Thank you for helping! 🐻❤️

Please let us know if you see any issue around bear attractant management during this crucial period at Silverstar

08/28/2026

Looking for a nature stroll this weekend? Take a walk on the byway and visit the bears.

08/23/2026

In 1975, a wildlife biologist watching a bear investigate a cabin door realized she was looking at a decision that would end in death. The bear would find food. It would return. It would teach its cubs to do the same. And within years, that bear would likely be shot.

This is the arithmetic of food conditioning, and it works in one direction only. A wild bear that discovers human food even once doesn't unlearn the route. It checks those doors for the rest of its life. It brings its family. Each visit deepens the habit and narrows the distance between survival and lethal conflict. Wildlife managers didn't create this outcome to be cruel. They created it because a fed bear is almost always a dead bear, and there is no reliable way to break the cycle once it begins.

So here's what most people get wrong: we think the danger comes from the bear's wildness, from some instinct to raid and destroy. It doesn't. The danger comes from how completely a wild animal can learn human predictability. A bear that finds food in a cabin or a dumpster or a cooler doesn't become aggressive. It becomes dependent. And dependence in a wild animal is the beginning of a tragedy that involves everybody's loss.

The question isn't really whether we should do more to keep wildlife wild. The question is whether we're willing to be the ones who stay wild instead. That means no food left out. No "just this once." No shortcuts. It's the smallest possible version of distance, and it's the only thing that actually works.

Do better for wildlife in the Okanagan.

Sources: National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, State wildlife management agencies

08/23/2026

I'm a bear and water is life. Please keep my water sources safe so I can live.

08/22/2026

When we've spent over 2 decades learning from a very special, patient teacher and her daughter (see attached photo), about Grizzly bear behavior, it literally shattered our hearts when we heard about the Grizzly bear family that has recently been torn apart. A mother and disabled cub, killed by authorities, left her 2 remaining, vulnerable yearling cubs to fend for themselves in the most un-natural way. There is never any credible scientific nor ethical nor moral justification for cruelty.

Where can we go from here.?

Over decades, there has been a lot of great work done around educating people about securing attractants. Yet, here we are, bears still paying with their lives, people still calling the COS when a bear simply crosses their property, the validity of calls not properly investigated by authorities, and community members tattling on bears and each other like school children.

It feels like we are missing the most important pieces of the puzzle: respect, tolerance, kindness and truthful narratives about the bears and how we really can live peacefully with them.
Are “attractants” really the problem or are they a symptom of a more far reaching problem.

Let’s start a conversation about humans becoming humane: how we treat bears and how we treat each other, because when we care about each other and we care about these animals, we won’t make decisions that are harmful to the bears, and in the process, harmful to ourselves.
When we humans are leading with respect, tolerance, kindness and truth, other communities will want to join us. .
Let’s be leaders in the best possible ways.
Let’s learn about bear behavior: who bears really are.
Let’s learn about how fear causes upredictable behaviors in people and in bears.
When we replace fear with truth, transparency, and respect, the bears will be safe... and when the bears are safe, we will be safe, too, in more ways than one.

Please be kind to each other and to the bears, while we figure this out together.