Super-sized doggy door helps North Vancouver family coexist with local bear

Most people are familiar with the concept of a doggy door, but how many have had the idea to super-size the concept?

That’s what North Vancouver man Curt Scheewe did after a local black bear repeatedly punched a large hole in his fence.

“Our neighbours, we all love the bear,” Scheewe told Global News.

“We are careful with our garbage and our compost, but we enjoy being on the bear route. We don’t really want him to go away.”

0:28 Video shows Coquitlam man surprised by black bear and chased out of garage

Scheewe moved into the property about a decade ago and said a local bear regularly knocked a hole in the old fence that came with the property.

“I would spend time to fix it and replace boards, and after a while, he just kept breaking it down all the time so we just left the hole,” he said.

About a month ago, the family installed a new fence along the property line, and sure enough, the local bruin showed up and knocked one of the panels out.

Rather than put the panel back, he left a one-metre by one-metre hole in the fence and framed it in to let the bear through.

Get breaking National news

For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.

Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up

By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

But he said the family was worried about coyotes and other creatures getting into the yard — and the bear door idea was born.

“I think it was the kids, we’ve had big dogs in the past, who said, ‘Let’s do a dog door/bear door,'” he explained.

Scheewe installed hinges and a wooden panel heavy enough to keep smaller animals out, which the local bear quickly figured out.

2:04 Rewilded bear cubs being tracked in new project

“Sure enough two weeks later he comes walking down the driveway and walks right through it like he’s done it 20 times,” he said.

Holly Reisner, co-executive director of the North Shore Black Bear Society, said in all her work on with bears she’s never seen someone implement the idea.

“It’s really nice to see that people can adapt to the bears being here,” she said.

“I mean the bears adapt to us, and they show us every day they can live peacefully with us, so it’s just so nice to see the residents going that extra step … In retrospect, it seems so simple.”

As opportunistic omnivores, black bears spend much of their time — particularly as they fatten up for hibernation — roaming their territory looking for food, Reisner said.

1:59 Unusual bear sighting in South Surrey

The animals tend to use green corridors rivers and ravines as highways, and tend to stick to established routes, she added.

“They repeat those routes over and over again, so this is what that bear was doing, she said.

“Which means if they encounter an obstacle like a fence, sometimes it means that fence just comes down because the bear is just big and goes through it.”

Sheewe’s family captured footage of the bear using the bear door, which the society posted on social media.

Reisner said she’s seen overwhelmingly positive reactions to the video, including a number of people asking for instructions on how to build one for themselves.

“I’m not a carpenter by any measure,” said Schewee who said he made the design up on the fly.

But he said he hopes to draft something to share with others soon.

First up, however, is making a second bear door for the broken fence on the other side of his property — where the bear exits as it crosses his yard.

We want to be safe and responsible, but we want him to be around,” he said.