ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — The campaign to save Dolly may have changed the fate of one Asheville black bear. Now, some residents want it to change how the city deals with bears in the first place.
Three residents urged Asheville City Council on Tuesday to take a more proactive approach to preventing conflicts between people and bears, calling for measures ranging from stronger education and enforcement to bear-resistant trash containers in neighborhoods where problems repeatedly occur.
Hannah Furgiele, who helped lead the campaign to save Dolly, told council her effort was never just about one bear.
Dolly drew widespread attention after wildlife officials said she repeatedly entered homes, including an Aug. 18 incident in which she entered a North Asheville home and injured a woman inside. The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission initially planned to euthanize Dolly if she was captured but later announced a partnership with the N.C. Zoo that would allow her to be kept alive in captivity.
Furgiele said Tuesday that Dolly’s story offered an opportunity to look at the larger issue of people and bears increasingly sharing the same space in Asheville.
“If we don’t have real systemic and infrastructural shifts, I think we’re going to just keep hearing this same story in Asheville,” Furgiele told council.
She said she has been talking with Wildlife Commission officials about what can be done and stressed that preventing bear conflicts is also about protecting people.
“I’m also a mother of a 4-year-old son,” she said. “All of this is about safety.”
Calls for prevention
Other residents offered more specific ideas.
Liz Thompson, a Beaverdam Valley resident who said she has lived in North Asheville for 41 years, called for more education aimed at visitors and new residents about living around bears.
She also questioned whether Asheville’s current $50 fine for unsecured waste is enough to discourage people from leaving trash accessible to bears.
“Asheville must adopt a modernized approach,” Thompson said.
Janice Riordan urged the city to consider creating designated human-bear conflict zones in neighborhoods where problems occur repeatedly.
Within those areas, she suggested requiring bear-resistant residential trash containers and commercial dumpsters.
Rather than waiting for a bear to be labeled a problem, Riordan said, the city should look for ways to prevent the behavior that leads to conflicts.
“Our black bears are one of the things that makes Asheville extraordinary,” she said. “Let’s protect our black bears before we lose what makes them and Asheville so special.”
A recurring Asheville problem
Human-bear conflicts are hardly new in Asheville and Buncombe County.
N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission biologist Ashley Hobbs told Buncombe County commissioners earlier this month that there have been more than 250 instances of bears entering homes in the county since 2017.
The Dolly case put renewed attention on the issue.
Wildlife officials said Dolly had developed a pattern of entering occupied homes in search of food. Two of her cubs were captured earlier this month and released in an undeveloped area.
After public appeals to spare Dolly, wildlife officials announced that she would not be euthanized if captured alive. Instead, the N.C. Zoo agreed to temporarily house her while officials search for an appropriate permanent facility.
“This is about more than just one bear for me,” Furgiele told council.
City Council took no action Tuesday on the residents’ proposals.
