Bear-proof trash cans could be coming to SWFL communities
High tech equipment may be the answer for communities on the edge of thickly settled areas that are close enough to the wild that bears are enticed to visit home where they smell a potential meal.
Bears who enjoy helping themselves to meals of discarded garbage would be out of luck, if the Conservancy of Southwest Florida succeeds in a new initiative that could include requiring locking trash can lids.
The state has more than $800,000 available to help counties and local communities with "high incidents of human-bear conflicts" pay for "bear-resistant containers" for rubbish, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
But the grants are weighed in favor of communities that have policies in place to keep the bears away from people. One important element in that strategy is to keep waste, and the aroma of waste, away from the bear population.
Counties and local governments have only until Oct. 14 to pass a bearwise ordinance to get in line for the funds, which also require contributions from the local governments. Lee County commissioners are not considering an ordinance.
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"The bears are drawn into our neighborhoods by food attractants. it is a human created conflict," said activist Kay Herring at a Lee County commission meeting Tuesday. "Bears don't know that getting into the trash will label them as a nuisance bear, and the penalty is severe, it is death."
The funds to help pay for bear resistant trash cans come from bear hunting licenses and proceeds from the Conserve Wildlife specialty license plate. In addition to rules for trash storage and pickup designed to keep bears at bay, the state looks at the number of people in close proximity to the bear population and the likelihood of reducing human-bear conflicts.
The Conservancy of Southwest Florida is asking local communities to approve new trash regulations that would encourage the use of trash containers that don't emit odors that bears find an attractive potential source of food.
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"A bearwise ordinance would address the attractors that are drawing these bears into neighborhoods and human-occupied areas," said Amber Crooks, a senior natural resources specialist for the Conservancy. "Some of the bear ordinances that have been adopted deal strictly with the trash, they require that the trash cans be placed out early on the morning of pick-up before the dump trucks come."
The community of Bella Terra in south Lee County has been home to a shy but persistent bear, who helps himself to trash can contents and ambles through the neighborhood in search of food. The bear's sense of smell is strong enough for him to detect faint smells of food, in pursuit of which he occasionally slips through a lanai.
The future may hold requirements for trash cans so that the lids are not loose enough to be pried open when they emit odors strong enough to catch the interest of hungry bears
Already, latching devices are available for commercial dumpsters. But Crooks said that the technology of the common trash can is entering a new era.
"Collier County is conducting a pilot study that will test bear resistant design in the field with bears and people's use of automated dump trucks that Collier uses, that part of Lee County uses." Crooks said. "It is being tested, there is a latch system with a specific movement of the arm of the vehicle that will unlatch it."
Results of the high tech trash can testing are expected to be available in the fall, and will determine if the latches slow down the collection of trash, which in turn means it cost the government more to provide the service.
