Dear people of Merritt,

On Sept. 23, four bears had to be put down.

All of these could have been avoided if the people of this city could learn to put their garbage away, clean up their gardens, and take down the fruit from their trees.

By not doing these simple things, we are teaching the bears that this is an easy place to find food. If we keep this up and force the Conservation Officers to continue putting down these bears, then there will soon not be many left just due to stupidity.

Another part of this problem is the City of Merritt gave us all garbage cans that do not lock. We need to work together to keep our city and the bears safe.

Shirley George
Merritt