Northern B.C. researchers want your help finding and collecting bear poop

CBC News

· Posted: May 24, 2025 10:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

Does a carnivore poop successful the woods? Or successful the city? 

Researchers successful Prince George, B.C., are asking for the public's assistance to place and cod carnivore scat truthful they tin past analyse it and comparison the wellness of municipality bears to those extracurricular the city. 

Biologist Laura Graham, a prof astatine the College of New Caledonia, is embarking connected a multi-year survey of the physiological differences recovered successful municipality bears to place what's bringing them to the city. Ultimately, the researchers purpose to find ways to negociate the bears and trim struggle with humans. 

In 2024, 303 achromatic bears were killed by B.C.'s Conservation Officer Service (COS), a crisp alteration compared to 603 the twelvemonth prior. Anywhere betwixt 500 and 600 are mostly killed by the COS annually.

Many of these deaths are due to the fact that bears spell looking for food, often successful garbage bins.

But it's not ever the case, Graham said. 

"Two years ago, it was a truly atrocious twelvemonth for bears coming into the city, but it was besides a precise atrocious twelvemonth for wood fires. Is that a origin coming into whether oregon not the bears travel into the city?" Graham said during an interrogation with CBC's Bill Fee. 

She said aerial prime and wellness coming retired of hibernation could besides beryllium factors. 

While Graham said she's not asking anyone to spell looking for poop, if they travel crossed it, she wants to know. 

"We'll travel prime them up, and past we tin analyse them for hormones related to accent and metabolism," she said. 

It could beryllium successful your gait oregon a parkland nearby. If you spot suspected carnivore poop, Graham is asking that you either instrumentality a photograph and nonstop it to 778-349-4813 oregon cod it if you hap to person a integrative poop container with you — similar those utilized to prime up aft dogs. 

For those sending successful photos, the illustration has to beryllium comparatively "fresh," and they'll request to see the determination of the sample. 

Anyone bringing the illustration successful should statement it with the clip and day collected, arsenic good arsenic the location. It tin beryllium dropped disconnected astatine the college, wherever there's a designated refrigerator for carnivore poop. 

According to the Fur-Bearers, an biology advocacy group, identifying carnivore scat is simple: it's large, acheronian and tin look "loose oregon tubular," the organization's website says. 

The probe squad is accepting photos and samples until precocious October, and the findings from the survey are expected to beryllium disposable by outpouring 2026.