Wakey wakey! Bears starting to emerge from hibernation in Yukon

If you go out in the woods today... better bring your bear spray.

The beasts are starting to rise and shine, according to Yukon conservation officer David Bakica. He knows because he stumbled on some fresh grizzly tracks in the snow a few days ago, near Whitehorse.

"I am 100 per cent sure that it was a bear, and it was a grizzly bear. No doubt about it," he said.

He was near Fish Lake on Sunday when he saw the bear tracks covering his own snowmobile track from a little earlier — evidence that the bear had just passed.

It's the first sign he's seen this year that hibernation is ending.  

"We're mid-April now, that's about right. Pretty much all the bears are going to be out by the beginning of May here, unless we get some really unseasonably cold weather," he said.

Bakica says it's a good reminder for Yukoners to start taking normal precautions again — such as managing garbage, livestock, and other attractants — to avoid encounters.

"It's proven to reduce the number of bear conflicts that we have, and the fewer bear conflicts that we have, results in fewer dead bears," he said.

Last year was an unusually bad one for human-bear encounters in Yukon. The territorial government said 63 bears were killed in 2017, more than in any of the previous five years.

• 63 bears destroyed in Yukon this year because of human conflict
• 'Shift in behaviour' needed in Yukon to avoid bears being killed, says wildlife group

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