Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 30/99) - A workable solution may soon be in the works concerning recent problems with the presence of bears at the city landfill.

Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development personnel met with City of Yellowknife administrators Wednesday afternoon to discuss various ways the bear situation at the dump could be remedied.

"We'll be working with RWED to look at short-term and long-term solutions," said director of public works and engineering, Gary Craig.

"The short-term is to cover the waste with granular material (sand) more often and the long-term is to put up an electrical fence around the dump.

"We also want to make sure that local businesses that bring out their own food waste to dispose of them in areas we want them to."

RWED manager of Wildlife and Parks, Gerd Fricke, concurred with the conciliatory relationship- building with the city and RWED.

"We met with the city today and we promised to work together and we examined some of the options that we'll explore further," said Fricke.

Five bears have been removed and relocated from the landfill and two more bears have been destroyed since RWED officers were called into to the dump late last week.

"Almost all the bears removed were in poor shape," said Fricke, commenting on RWED's efforts to control the presence of bears at the landfill.

"One bear had almost no hair on one side and all of their teeth were heavily worn down. They also had tapeworms."

According to Fricke, there is believed to be at least eight more bears within the vicinity of the landfill.