Much more than just an 'Electric Fencing Workshop' on Cortes Island

Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - Bob Hansen’s Electric Fencing Workshop was delightful. The ‘talk’ he gave at LInnaea Farm, on February 3, was permeated by stories of animal behaviour as well as visual aids.

“I've been involved in 50 plus electric fencing projects in our region over the last six years. Everywhere that electric fences have gone in, that resolved the conflicts that were occurring,” Hansen explained.  

His environmental career started out in Jasper National Park 40 years ago. He is a specialist when it comes to human wildlife encounters. He has worked for Environment Canada, Adventure Canada, and has just completed his sixth as the WildSafeBC Community Coordinator for the Pacific Rim. While that is on the other side of Vancouver Island, Bob Hansen has a long relationship with Cortes. 

“It is a real pleasure for me to be back on Cortes after so many years. 2009 was the first time Sabina got ahold of me and said, 'you have to come over here.’” (Laughter) 

Aside from the words ‘I do’ and ‘help’ it’s difficult to understand what local biologist Sabina Leader-Mense replied, but Hansen understood.

“I really appreciate having had that connection. It's so cool, all the work that Cortes has done over the years to co-exist and it's clear that that the commitment's there. I use Cortes all the time as an example in the education that I do. Check out Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) and their primers. Check out what's happened here.”

“WildSafeBC used to be called BearAware, but in 2014 it was abundantly clear that there was a lot more wildlife that people were living with than bears. So they reimagined the whole program to include all wildlife. There's around 30 community coordinators working in over 100 communities.  It really is fascinating how various communities have different sets of challenges in terms of coexistence, and the organization is really remarkable in the services it provides across the province. For the most part, all of those services and resources are free.” 
“The real true solution for conflict is  preventing the conflict from happening by managing the attractants. Being aware of how attractive things like bird feeders are.  That little block of suet there has about 6,000 calories. For a bear to get an equivalent amount of calories from salal berries, it would have to eat 15 kilograms of salal berries. Just before hibernation, they're trying to eat 20,000 calories a day.  That's why you need to take down your bird feeders during bear season.” 

The remainder of Hansen’s talk was about electric fencing.