Pool party bears

Natalie Lakovic was relaxing at her West Kelowna home Thursday night when a bang made her jolt up.

“I thought someone was in our yard, or on my roof, or something,” she said.

She popped her head outside and and saw their large beanbag chair “flipping and flopping.”

"I thought, 'is that the wind?’ then I realized, ’no, we have no wind’,” she said.

Then a neighbourhood mischief maker popped up at the window, and looked inside her house.

A furry, and frolicking mischief maker, with friends, no less.

“I saw one, then two, then three of them playing,” she said. “We let it go on for a while, then we screamed and they took off.”

Before they did, however, Lakovic made sure to catch some of the hijinks on camera.

The bears are rolling around and having a good time with one another, and those in her neighbourhood group who have had a chance to watch have enjoyed it as much as her family have.

"I can’t believe how many views it has,” she said.

"People love that it’s not about garbage all the time, it’s cute and fun for the neighbourhood. No harm, no damage."

While the frolicking bears shouldn't be mistaken with garbage bears, this is the season of more sightings and Okanagan residents are strongly urged to secure garbage as bears begin to prepare for hibernation.

WildSafeBC has warned that bears are more likely to be wandering Okanagan neighbourhoods this time of year.

According to provincial data, about 700 bears were killed last year, largely because they were acclimatized to humans. This year, 178 bears have been killed from January to June alone. The late summer months are when the most black bears are put down.

The province is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.

"There's no conservation officers out there in the province of BC that enjoy having to go out and remove the lives of these bears that are attracted to these non-natural food sources by, quite frankly, people that are not managing their attractants," Sgt. James Zucchelli with BC Conservation Officer Services said.

"It's easy for people to go to the grocery store, buy all their food and keep it all secure and stored in their house until they don't need it anymore, and then they just leave it on the roadside or it outside their house. We just need to evolve our mentality around bears and how we manage bears and how we manage attractants."

Unfortunately, as much as everyone would like to see relocation for the bears, once they become garbage-habituated, it's not possible.

"It does not work. There's very specific circumstances that go into the decision to relocate, and those conditions are not met by a habituated food conditioned bear," Zucchelli said.

"In those circumstances, those bears end up getting killed by other bears within the population with the area that we bring them to, or they end up right back at the location where they were trapped. It's a band aid solution to a much bigger problem, makes people feel good thinking that, but it does not work."

-with files from Casey Richardson