[sureLoss]

http://news.globaltv.com/technology/...362/story.html

EDMONTON — Wildlife officers shot and killed 12 black bears at a landfill in northern Alberta on Tuesday in what is believed to be the largest bear cull in recent history.


People from the hamlet of Conklin, population 166, regularly bring their children to the dump to watch, photograph and feed the bears, and the animals had become accustomed to people.


“The landfill had improper fencing and there were reports people were feeding the bears,” Alberta Sustainable Resource Development spokesman Darcy Whiteside said. “It was public safety concern. These bears were not afraid of humans anymore.”


But critics said the mass killing was inexcusable.


“Instead of investing in fences that would keep the bears out of the garbage and away from humans, they decide the cheapest solution is to lay to waste a bunch of living animals as if they didn’t have a right to exist. It’s really deplorable,” said Sid Marty, a park warden turned activist who recently published a book about a garbage-seeking grizzly who mauled five people in Banff, Alta., in the early 1980s, killing one.