Cost of nuisance bear control goes up 47 percent

The company that handled nuisance bears last year for Ojibway Park and Garden River and Batchewana First Nations is expected to get a $22,000 contract from the City of Sault Ste. Marie on Monday.

Chi Makwa Enterprises of Sault Ste. Marie, owned by Darryl Hill and Doug Belanger, is being recommended to replace Denis Monaghan, who's advised the City he's no longer interested after trucking away a record number of bears last year.

The company intends to provide six Cambrian child-proof bear traps to trap and remove all nuisance bears from the City for $22,000.

That's $3,000 more than the amount approved for bear control in the 2003 operating budget approved by City Council last week, and $7,000 more than the amount budgeted last year.

Darryl Hill is an Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources deputy conservation officer who has worked on MNR bear control for five previous seasons.

Doug Belanger worked for Batchewana First Nation as natural resources co-ordinator from 1994 until 2002 and has recently completed the Ontario fur managers course.

Both Hill and Belanger have completed MNR's nuisance black bear trapping/relocation course and the ministry's chemical immobilization course.