Black Bears Found Guarding 1,000 Marijuana Plants – “Paid” in Dog Food

(Daily Mail Reporter By KATIE SILVER) – A group of black bears have been found acting as guards over a marijuana plantation in British Columbia.

The ten bears were found last August when police conducted a raid of a pot plantation at Christina Lake in south-eastern British Columbia, Canada. The property’s owner, Allen Wayne Piche, was allegedly paying the bears in dog food to guard some 1,000 marijuana plants. Piche, who has proclaimed himself the ‘Bear Dude,’ was charged with feeding dangerous wildlife on his property.  As yet, there have been no drug charges laid out.

The bears went in to hibernation over the winter. Now, B.C conservation officials are waiting for them to get out of hibernation before deciding their fate. ‘They should be coming out any time,’ said B.C. Minister of Environment Terry Lake. ‘In the interior, this is when we start seeing them.  I suspect in Christina Lake it’s any day.’ He said officers will be keeping a watchful eye out for the bruins after they awake from their slumber to see if they return to a Christina Lake property.

‘We are hoping if there is no food they will start foraging naturally — if they don’t, we will have to have a plan of action,’ he added. The bears, which had lost their natural instincts to be fearful of humans, could face a death sentence. The animals had become so docile and friendly that one even climbed atop a police cruiser during the August raid, officials said.  The Mounties described them as tame and playful.

Activists and officials alike were ecstatic last year when they returned productively into the woods for winter hibernation, according to animal rights activist Doreen McCrindle who gathered some 2,468 signatures in a petition to save the bears. Still, time will tell if the bears can dodge the bullet once again. They might pose a dangerous nuisance to humans and be a ‘safety threat,’ according to official Dave Webster.  ’At that point, they’ll be destroyed – there’s nothing else we can do with them,’ he said. Now the bears fate rests on what happens after they wake up from their deep sleep, Lake said.