Bears hung out at pot farm

A couple of pot growers near Christina Lake, British Columbia made friends with the area's black bears. When the cops raided the farm, they encountered a dozen laid-back black bears. From the Vancouver Sun:

Besides the bears, some of which had cubs, the property also contained more than 1,000 marijuana plants, a young raccoon, a pot-bellied pig, a large dog, and two human residents.

Some people were feeding the bears dog food to lure them into hanging out on the property, RCMP Const. Dave Smith said...

Said Smith: “We saw no evidence they were consuming the plants.”

In addition to drug charges, the couple may face charges of feeding wildlife, said Webster. But he doubted the bears were being encouraged to help guard the pot farm. He thought it was more likely “misguided good intent,” adding it wasn’t the first time conservation officers had been called out to the property because the residents were feeding bears.

What becomes of the bears depends on whether they easily return to their natural habitat and food sources, Webster said.

"Ten or more black bears found guarding B.C. pot farm"

• [Galadriel]

  The feral cats that I take care of occasionally show up stoned out of their heads. I thought maybe they were finding catnip somewhere, but it’s also been suggested that one of my neighbors is growing marijuana.

• [TooGoodToCheck]

  You gotta love a headline so shitty that it directly contradicts the story.

  Headline:
  “Ten or more black bears found guarding B.C. pot farm”

  Story:
  “But he doubted the bears were being encouraged to help guard the pot farm. He thought it was more likely “misguided good intent,” adding it wasn’t the first time conservation officers had been called out to the property because the residents were feeding bears.”

• [V]

  Hey Boo-Boo! I got the munchies real bad!
  Where’s that pik-a-nik basket?

• [jackm]

  This is what I love about Portland/Seattle/Vancouver. A giant cloud of weed hangs above the entire Pacific Northwest. No racism, no real economy except for coffee and the snack food industry. Hell, even the vampires up there go vegetarian! ;-P

  And now, we have bears with contact highs. Just give them cartoons to watch, a campus for a habitat, and a hackey sack and they’ll be okay.

  • [baxterdog]

    I have no clue where you’re going with this. OH, yes I do. You don’t live here but have an opinion. You are either a complete asshat, or a complete asshat. I’m pretty confident that you are one or the other. Try again.

    • [jackm]

      Very charming Baxterdog. It’s good to know that pugnacious irony impairment is not just limited to the American Midwest. (Oh, sorry. Did I use words that were too big for you? Google them, you might learn something.)

      And oh yes, I did live in Portland, as did my brother.

• [PTBartman]

  “Buuuut Yogi the ranger gets awfully mad when we steal his stash”

• [Anonymous]

  This explains why Yogi was always stealing those pic-i-nic baskets.

• [Rindan]

  Busting on a couple of hippies growing a drug that is certainly more benign than alcohol. Awesome use of police resources.

  • [vermiliongrrl]

    Agreed.

• [braininavat]

  Speaking as a BC resident, what I find most surprising is that the cops keep busting these huge, ingeniously disguised grow-ops but the price of pot never budges.

• [cls]

  Sad thing is, they’ll probably do more time for the pot than for “taming” the bears that will have to be killed now.

• [alllie]

  It’s a pity any of this is illegal.

  • [querent]

    Feeding wildlife is detrimental to wildlife. But pot’s ok.

• [Anonymous]

  I’d say it’s not (as in in the article) “misguided good intent,”
  but rather it looks more like “misguided bad intent,”
  on the part of that so full of himself RCMP.
  We shall see what you will be saying in 2 years mounty…

• [Anonymous]

  yes, sadly tragic as they may destroy all the bears, now habituated to humans, human food, but not humans as food. misguided humans, misguided “conservation” policy. bears are defenders of the woods, they say. also they are canaries in coal mine indicators of eco health.
  perhaps the bears were growing and now face capital punishment for that. check twitter/igzabier for bear policy in 1888

• [ian71]

  hey if they could rehabilitate the cougar that was addicted to the pot plants on that episode of Trailer Park Boys then for sure they can help out these bears. They probably just had a wicked case of the munchies anyway.

• [Marcel]

  So when the 1000 plants large plantation was discovered full of ferocious bears, the two residents were arrested and then Constable Smith proceeded to pose in front of the camera for jolly pictures with the bears.

  Meanwhile, across the border, SWAT teams are called out to raid and ransack houses, shoot the benign family dogs, and traumatize the kids over a few grams of pot.

• [ian_b]

  if you needed any more proof that raccoons are gateway critters… i’ll bet you anything they’ll claim they were using the bears for medicinal purposes.

• [Glossolalia Black]

  Do they really have to kill them? Couldn’t they send them to a rehabilitation center, funded by the guy who was feeding them dog food anyway? There’s no reason these animals have to be killed, even though the guy feeding him was doing the wrong thing. They could get fixed so they don’t have any more babies. Or something.

  Something?

• [DarthVain]

  My personal favorite was the raccoon that was dozing, “spread-eagled on the bed, like a cat,”

  Hippies living with nature.

  Can we legalize this already, its becoming a circus.

• [Cazart]

  And coming in at number one on the Threatdown…wait…what?

• [orwellian]

  It seems like they could move the bears to a park away from humans rather than kill them. I’m assuming they are seizing the house and contents and car and anything else associated with the pot grower. The funds could be used for that instead of buying more firepower than a WWII platoon.

• [Anonymous]

  In addition to drug charges, the couple may face charges of feeding wildlife…

  “Murder, arson and jaywalking” trope IRL.

• [Phikus]

  The bears may not have eaten any plants, but the pot-bellied pig was brought in for further questioning.

• [Trotsky]

  Potbear vs. Pedobear.

  FIGHT!

• [hassenpfeffer]

  There’s a honeypot joke here somewhere, but I can’t quite find it.

• [hassenpfeffer]

  Oh, and how could I forget:

  “We’re here! We’re queer! We don’t want any more bears!”

  (But we do want some sweet, sweet bud.)

• [Ugly Canuck]

  Hippies growing 1,000 pot plants in the woods?
  That amount does not sound like a commercial operation to me – if they are “true hippies”.

  On the contrary: that amount IMO sounds like it would only provide them the bear necessities:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ogQ0uge06o

  Yeah, man!