GATLINBURG, Tenn. (WATE) — Multiple groups hosted an educational bear management open house in Gatlinburg on Tuesday.
The City of Gatlinburg, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), and the Smokies BearWise Task Force partnered on the event to teach residents, businesses and visitors how to live responsibly and safely around bears.
The event comes after a series of human-bear interactions were caught on camera, leading to some of the bears involved being euthanized, due to their comfort level around humans.
Neighbors Debra Summers and Paul Albert attended the event to learn how they can do their part to prevent bear euthanasia.
“I have several bears coming through my property and I live alone,” Summers said. “I feel that it’s important to respect the bears and take care of our bears and I want to do everything I could to make my place be bear-wise.”
The two have both lived in Gatlinburg for six years, and said bears are becoming more and more comfortable in their neighborhood.
“We’re on bear routes. We’ve seen more bears this year than we’ve ever seen before,” Albert said. “We wanted to find better ways of really creating more separation between ourselves and the bears, for their safety and ours.”
They have gotten rid of bird feeders, started keeping pets indoors and locked up trash to prevent bears from coming too close.
TWRA Black Bear Support Biologist Janelle Musser said making sure people are informed is the first step to solving the issue.
“A lot of these people own businesses, have rental units, and they want some quality, correct information to be able to provide these guests that may not live around bears,” she said. “So that’s a big part of it too. How they get that information, what should they be using, and where.”
Some guests also asked about the possibility of enhanced punishments for those who feed and entice bears. Seth Butler with the City of Gatlinburg said more legislation is possible.
“The city has ordinances that we can fine or cite folks for unsecured trash, or noncompliance with the animal-resistant container zone. TWRA has their proclamation, which they can cite people for feeding a bear,” Butler said. “Obviously, we’re always looking at what we can do. I know TWRA has mentioned there’s a push by the state legislature of possibly making that a statewide law.”
The city has taken other recent measures to prevent these interactions, adding new signage and bear-resistant trash cans. Butler said he’s hopeful more educational events will be held in the future.