Posted by Tina
This story is out of Canada where an enterprising movie theater owner found a great solution to a big problem:
Bear this place in mind, by John Goddard The Star, Kinmount, Ontario
The problem with running a movie house in the woods is that black bears smell the popcorn. *** “They’re not stupid,” says Keith Stata, owner of an eccentric cinema complex in the wilds of cottage country. “If on a busy night we pump 50 pounds of popcorn through the machine, they get interested.” *** Stata likes bears, or at least is prepared to coexist with them. *** When he built his first 60-seat public movie theatre onto the back of his house in 1979, he knew he was building in bear country. His property off Highway 121 at Kinmount, where the Kawartha Lakes meet the Haliburton Highlands, is heavily forested, with berries and apple trees all around. *** When he added a second theatre in 1986 and extended the parking lot into the trees, he became even more aware of an ursine presence. *** “One night, I went to open the door (to leave) and a bear was leaning against the door,” he says. *** Stata got an idea. Instead of drawing bears to the popcorn, he would serve popcorn to the bears. He would make extra popcorn and drop it once a week with an 18-kilogram bag of dog food some distance away in the woods. *** A few years ago, when a mother and two cubs moved to the area, he increased the dog food to two bags a week. Now with only one bear regularly in the area, he is back to one. *** “They’re really cute to watch but I don’t go looking for them and I don’t make friends with them,” he says of the key to living with bears.