Environmental stewards from First Nations on the coast of James Bay will be gathering in northern Ontario this week to learn how to best deal with polar bears that are straying into their communities.
Karen Cummings of the Polar Bear Habitat, a polar bear reserve in Cochrane, Ont., says several James Bay communities had polar bears within their town limits for the first time in years in 2016.
Cummings says she knows of at least eight instances between December 2015 and December 2016, and adds that climate change is believed to be behind the increasing number of bears moving into towns in search of food.
She says polar bears are a new problem for certain northern Ontario communities such as Moose Factory -- where a polar bear turned up at the dump -- and are very rare for communities like Kashechewan and Attawapiskat.
Cummings says a workshop set to begin in Fort Albany First Nation on Tuesday aims to teach Mushkegowuk environmental stewards ways of deterring bears and how to live-trap the animals if necessary to remove them from town. She says the goal is for the environmental stewards to adapt those techniques to each communities' unique circumstances.
Mushkegowuk Grand Chief Jonathon Solomon says the workshop is just one step of potentially many that will be taken to ensure the security of the First Nations communities.
