The Creston Valley Bear Fair will be held on Saturday, Aug 11th from noon – 4 pm at Columbia Brewery (1220 Erikson St. Creston).
The aim of the Creston Valley Bear Fair is a community-wide event to promote bear safety education and conflict prevention with grizzly bears. This is a free fun educational event for the whole family!
The Creston Valley is a natural wildlife corridor between the South Selkirk and South Purcell mountains as Kootenay Lake limits animal movement to the north. Grizzly bear populations near Creston are recovering from formerly threatened status, and this leads to the occasional human encounter in the Creston Valley. To keep people and bears safe, it is important to provide education and practical tools, so people have the knowledge to prevent conflicts and how to act if they encounter a bear. The Bear Fair will provide bear safety training from BC Conservation Officers (including hands-on training with inert practice bear spray), a presentation on local grizzly bear populations, an electric fencing demonstration, and general bear awareness.
The Bear Fair is hosted by the Transborder Grizzly Bear Project (TBGBP), whose goal is to use science to understand conservation challenges and implement our researched solutions for grizzly bears in the transborder southern Selkirk and Purcell Mountains of BC, NW Montana, and North Idaho. The TBGBP receives funds from various NGO sources from both the US and Canada and works to apply relevant scientific research on grizzly bear biology as it relates to management and conservation in the local area.
Gillian Sanders, the Fair Coordinator, says, “Our first Bear Fair in 2016 was a great success, with over 100 participants giving us positive feedback that such an event should be repeated.” This year’s fair has gained much local support with thanks to the following contributors: Columbia Basin Trust, RDCK, Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program, BC Conservation Officers Service, Jimmy’s Pub and the Creston Hotel, JH Huscroft Ltd., and the Columbia Brewery. Sanders adds “We look forward to this year’s fair and hope to see you there!”