Dear Sir:
I read with relish about the chicken farms to be established in the back yard of anyone wanting them.
Claudette Sandecki in her April 6, 2011 column is right because she was a farm girl who studied and understand chickens. But, as I said to my informant, she missed the coyotes, foxes and bears.
Bears like chicken dinner too. Boiled, roasted, on toast, with garlic (or without), southern fried, or northern or Kentucky fried even. Or with guts and feathers. And bears love chicken feed.
A fence or door that will deter a fox or a coyote is just a minor setback for a bear. He just rips it off when the reward justifies the means.
There is a legal[problem that the bears (or most other people) don't know about. That is the provincial lay that makes it an offense to put out “bear attractants,” and believe me or not, bears are certain to be attracted to a chicken pen and the associated chicken feed.
And if you don't believe me, go and ask the next bear you get close to.
Les Watmough
Terrace, B.C.