The number of problem bears shot so far this summer around the territory is continuing to rise.

But the problem is not the bears; it’s the garbage that’s left about, garbage containers that are not bear-proof.

It’s the chicken coops and other livestock pens without proper electric fencing. It’s the bird feeders and dog food left out.

Those are the problems, conservation officer Aaron Koss-Young said this morning – again.

It’s what he and his fellow officers said last month as the count of dead bears continued to mount, just as they said the month before, and the month before that, just as they said last year, and the year before that, and....

Koss-Young said he can’t say with precision how many of the 55 bears shot this summer were the result of bears pulled into conflict by attractants left unprotected, though he estimates it’s at least 80 per cent.

“We’re just trying to get people to change their behaviours with regard to managing attractants,” he said.

He said the problem is not just individual property owners, but also includes the different levels, municipal, Yukon and First Nation government.

“We all have to work together to try and come up with more viable alternatives of preventing bears from getting into these attractants,” he said. “I think if we set the example as government, I think the public will follow suit.”

Of the total number of bears shot, Koss-Young estimates 50 per cent were shot by officers and 50 per cent by individuals defending life and property.

Not 10 minutes after this morning’s interview, the Star received information about a bear crossing Lewes Boulevard and walking into the school yard of F.H. Collins Secondary School.

Another woman told the Star how, on her way to work this morning, she’d seen garbage strewn about a number of residential garbage bins in Riverdale – a sign suggesting they’d been ransacked before the morning pickup.

Koss-Young described how the most recent bear killed was a large male black bear, shot in Haines Junction by the school yard. Officers had attempted to scare it away on eight occasions, including the use of rubber bullets, but it didn’t work.

Once bears know where they can get a food reward, they’d rather run the risk than not eat, he explained.

The conservation officer said relocating bears is not always the answer, particularly with sub-adult males who are often chased away from territories ruled by larger bears, and will seek to return from where they came.

They’ve relocated 21 so far this year, he said.

Koss-Young said the reality is that there are budgetary constraints, and flying bears 100 or 200 kilometres away in a helicopter is not cheap – and certainly way more expensive than a $250 electric fence.

There are environmental factors such as this year’s late spring and the slow green-up that make for less forage material, he acknowledged.

When the bears get food stressed, that’s when they start moving further afield and smelling for alternatives, he said.

The conservation officer pointed out, for instance, that if you have a berry bush or a fruit tree in your yard, pick the berries or the crab apples as they ripen, or invite your friends and neighbours to do so.

The problem of poorly managed attractants, “these are the things we see,” Koss-Young said.

In the seven years from 2010 through 2016, Environment Yukon records show an average of 38 bears shot in the territory each year, with an average of eight grizzlies and 30 black bears.

The worst year in the seven-year period was 2012, when 61 bears were shot – 10 grizzlies and 51 black bears.