KEEPING BEARS WILD AND HUMANS SAFE IS PRIORITY #1

Educating the public on how to live harmoniously with Sooke’s wild life is the guiding principle of a new organization launched by former WildSafe BC regional coordinator Debb Read and Nitya Harris of Vancouver Island’s Coexisting with Carnivores Alliance. It will operate under the auspices of the Sooke Transition Town Society.

Wild Wise Sooke will initially and primarily focus on bear management as Read continues a highly effective campaign she began in 2012. Sooke is statistically one of the Canada’s leading hotspots for black bears. Problems arise as bears become habituated to dining on garbage rather than berries and roots. In turn, this creates safety issues and, in increasingly rare instances, fatal consequences for the bears.

The good news: Read’s efforts have decreased the number of local complaints to conservation services by 40 percent (down to 278 calls last spring and summer). Better still, only four bears needed to be destroyed last year in the District of Sooke compared to 16 in 2013.

Sooke is now ready for its own community wildlife education program directed by a founding working group that features Read, Harris, the District of Sooke’s Laura Byrne, the EMCS Society’s Ebony Logins, Transition Sooke’s Jeff Bateman and the Chamber of Commerce’s Travis Butler. The RCMP’s Jeff McArthur and Conservation Officers Peter Pauwels and Richard DeKelver are part of the advisory team.

“Ongoing public education is essential or the progress we’ve made will be lost,” explains Read. “The vast majority of people get it, but there are still folks out there who either store their garbage outside or keep it in the garage but put it out the night before pick-up. Other people leave pet food outside, keep their bird feeders full during the summer or are careless with their compost. All this is pure bear bait and it’s guaranteed to increase the chance of dangerous interactions between the bears and us.”

Sooke residents who spot a bear in their neighbourhood should immediately call the Ministry of Environment’s RAPP line at 1-800-663-WILD. In most cases, the creature will be rambling through on its way elsewhere, however the call allows conservation staff to track the local bear population. If the problem persists, Read makes a personal visit to explore the root causes and offer bear-wise remedies.

“Once a bear starts equating humans with food, they lose their natural wariness and become what is called ‘human-habituated,'” she explains. “They then learn to tolerate us in much closer proximity than what is safe for both bears and humans. My best advise to homeowners is to take a careful look around their property, figure out what’s attracting the bears and then take remedial steps.”

Wild Wise Sooke is a good fit for Transition Sooke, says Bateman, its president. “One key aspect of the Transition Town philosophy is the ‘inner transition,’ and Debb is working hard to change the way we respect and interact with all forms of life in the region. Since 90 percent of bear problems arise from garbage issues, the new group can partner up on projects with the new Zero Waste Sooke initiative. Best of all, Debb and Nitya are remarkably competent, caring and capable individuals with a plan and the energy to make it happen. The bears and all our wild things are fortunate to have them.”

The new organization is seeking volunteers, donors and partnerships with local non-profits, businesses and funding bodies. In time, the educational focus will turn to cougars, raccoons, deer and other local inhabitants. For further information, please contact Debb Read at debbread@icloud.com.

Sooke News Mirror article 

This poem was written by 10 year old Sooke resident Katya Silvester. Her themes of nature and community fit the transition model nicely.

With a busy week behind us and much more to come in the weeks ahead, please check out last week’s newsletter sent to our membership. Scroll down the page for upcoming events of interest to the Transition-minded running locally through mid-May.  If you’d like to sign up for our email list, please make a request to sooketransition@gmail.com. 

After a comment about the events listing, I corrected the listing and added some upcoming events. Here is the new version of the April newsletter.

A delegation from Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project will be addressing Sooke Council during a Committee of the Whole meeting this coming Tuesday night at 7 p.m. This is a rare regional appearance by representatives from the Texas-based multi-national corporation. We’re assuming they’ve chosen Sooke for this presentation because we’re a front-line seaside community and also because of our town’s two-thirds majority plebiscite vote in November opposing increased tanker traffic in coastal BC waters.

If Kinder Morgan’s proposal is approved by the National Energy Board, oil tanker traffic in the Strait of Juan de Fuca will increase from 60 to 408 supertankers a year. The already strong risk of a spill in our local waters – a danger identified by Transport Canada and numerous other groups and individuals, among them former Sooke Mayor Wendal Milne and JDF Director Mike Hicks –  will become unacceptably high.

As a prelude to Tuesday night, please read the letter in this week’s Sooke News Mirror from Gail Armitage, coordinator of the Sooke chapter of the Dogwood Initiative. (Ms. Armitage also submitted a set of queries that council might like to ask KM’s representatives: KM_April 7_proposed questions).

As previewed by Sooke councillor Kerrie Reay at the Jan. 26 council meeting, KM will likely offer the following solutions to these dangers: i) Tug escort for tankers will be extended to the Swiftsure Bank and the Pacheedaht and Ditidaht food fishing grounds; ii) Two pilots will be on tankers when they traverse the Strait of Juan de Fuca; and iii)  Kinder Morgan is prepared to invest $100 million in five emergency response sites in the region, namely in Delta, Nanaimo, the Saanich Peninsula, Race Rocks and Sooke. Ms. Reay, the immediate past-president of the Conservative Party of Canada’s Esquimalt Saanich Sooke Riding Association, was the one councillor to vote against the tanker plebiscite last fall.

With climate change rampant, Transition Sooke is part of a growing movement of groups and individuals who believe that now is the time to leave fossil fuels in the ground, work with current sources of energy and begin to dramatically escalate investments in clean energy. We insist that Supernatural BC, the Best Place on Earth TM, be treated with all due respect.

Please show your support for a sustainable green future by attending the council meeting. Seating is limited, and we expect a standing-room-only turnout. Following Mayor Tait’s introduction, the KM delegation will make its presentation and council members will be given the opportunity to ask questions. The public will then be granted time to make statements (but not directly question KM’s representatives, though it’s possible that queries can be redirected via the Mayor).

The good news is that Sooke’s new council has strongly renewed and restated its opposition to increased tanker traffic via a resolution that will be addressed at the annual convention of the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities, two weekends from now in Courtenay.  You’ll find the Sooke resolution and one from Esquimalt (which calls for an independent pipeline review given inconsistencies in the NEB process) on pages 47/48 of the AVICC Annual Report and Resolution book, which can be downloaded here.

Humanity is more than ever threatened by its own actions; we hear a lot about the need to minimize footprints and to reduce our impact. But what if our footprints were beneficial? What if we could meet human needs while increasing the health and well-being of our planet? This is the premise behind permaculture: a design process based on the replication of patterns found in nature.NHABIT explores the many environmental issues facing us today and examines solutions that are being applied using the ecological design lens of permaculture. Focused mostly on the Northeastern and Midwestern regions of the United States, Inhabit provides an intimate look at permaculture peoples and practices ranging from rural, suburban, and urban landscapes.

Check it out here! If you order or rent the movie through this link, part of the proceeds will support Transition Sooke!

NEP Poster FINAL 2015-01-15

Heated debates over pipelines, heading both east and west, have prompted calls for a ‘National Energy Strategy’, with particular effort invested by the Council of the Federation to coordinate actions by provincial and territorial governments. While provinces like Ontario and Quebec are actively seeking to shift their provincial economies away from fossil fuels and to promote interprovincial trade in clean energy, Alberta is actively expanding production of oil and gas, and primarily seeking transit for fossil fuels to foreign markets. For its part, British Columbia is at a crossroads, seeking expansion of hydro-power but also of coal and LNG exports.

While the promise of consensus on a ‘national’ strategy may instinctively appeal to Canadians, we must confront the fundamental incompatibility between the energy goals of different provinces and the very different visions for our country implicit therein.

Join us for an evening of information & discussion with Kathryn Harrison, author, activist, engineering graduate and UBC professor of political science.

Monday, March 16, 2015 at 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at the First Metropolitan United Church (932 Balmoral Road, Victoria)

ABOUT KATHRYN HARRISON

Dr. Kathryn Harrison is a professor of Political Science at UBC. She has a Bachelor’s degree in engineering (UWO), Master’s degrees in political science and chemical engineering (MIT), and a Ph.D. in political science (UBC). Before entering academia, she worked as a chemical engineer in the oil industry, and as a policy analyst for both Environment Canada and the United States Congress. Dr. Harrison is the author or editor of several volumes, the most recent of which is Global Commons, Domestic Decisions: The Comparative Politics of Climate Change, and has published widely on climate and environmental policy. Frustrated by policymakers’ rejection of both experts’ and voters’ advice, she has become increasingly active in two volunteer NGOs: UBCC350 and Voters Taking Action on Climate Change.

Transition Sooke’s Annual General Meeting is set for 6:45 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 21st at the Little Vienna Bakery Cafe, 6726 West Coast Road in Sooke.

We anticipate a brief business meeting, then everyone’s invited to settle back and enjoy the fourth in Stephen Hindrichs’ evenings of short, inspiring, upbeat video clips that he’s presented over the last few years at the bakery.

All members are welcome to the AGM, and we invite individuals to nominate themselves for our board of directors (aka “core team”). We regularly meet on the second Tuesday of the month at a director’s home. Directors are responsible for attending as many meetings as possible, contributing to our consensus decision-making process, and also taking on various working-group responsibilities.

Sincere thanks to our 2014 board team: Jeff Bateman (president), Michael Tacon (treasurer and past president) and board directors  Darren Alexander, Blake Barton, Yvonne Court, Sofie Hagens, Lee Hindrichs, Stephen Hindrichs and Andrew Moore. All directors will stand down at the AGM, and we’re pleased to report that most of these people along with Tony St. Pierre and Mark Ziegler are putting their names forward for the new board.

Attached please find our 2013 financial report and the minutes from last year’s AGM.

TS AGM 2013

2013 TS Financial Report

We thought you might appreciate this:

a short report by Thierry Vrain on his position about the risks involved with GMO foods.