Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
Holy crap, what a horrific nightmare. Poor girl. Maybe a culling up there isn't such a bad idea. I don't understand what bears add to the ecosystem and they are incredibly dangerous.
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Bears are not incredibly dangerous. Bears eat plants and berries, bear scat distrutes these seeds thoughout the area allowing for more plants and berries to go.
I go out to these sites about once a month to walk down pipelines and seeing a blackbear is not an uncommon occurance. Over the summer I will see a bear on about half my trips. I am interested to see how this investigation goes as I hope it leads to better practices that can prevent incidents. Better food and garbage handling might help, I am not sure what Suncor's in particular are. Especially the dump sites.
Also better education on bear safety. If the worker was working remotely and alone is always having a partner a good idea if out in the bush during summer. Is bear spray and appropriate training a good option for out of plant work.
Bears aren't the problem though, bears were there first, we can easily work with them and still extract oil from the ground.
Also we can always remember that driving a car is significantly more dangerous than anything else we ever do. So if you drive a car being afraid of bears doesn't make sense.