City council stopped short Monday of going ahead with a program to encourage homeowners to remove fruit trees as a way to lessen the number of problem bears.
Instead, the matter was referred to a newly-created committee to tackle the problem of in general.
As proposed, the program would have provided up to $500 to defray the cost of removing a tree.
However, Coun. Garth Frizzell noted that $10,000 would be budgeted for the program and questioned how effective it would be if residents can still purchase fruit-bearing trees from garden centres and continue to plant them in their yards.
"If we have a program in place where we're paying to have them removed and some residents are still purchasing them and some businesses are still earning profits from them, then we've got ourselves into a potential pickle of a situation," Frizzell said.
Earlier in the evening, council directed staff to draft a terms of reference for a bear aware advisory committee made up of representatives from the Northern Bear Awareness Society, B.C. Conservation Officer Service, University of Northern B.C., Fraser-Fort George Regional District solid waste division, City of Prince George solid waste and bylaw divisions and three community members at large.
The committee would report back to council with recommendations for the 2025 budget.
