New charges laid in Christina Lake bear feeding case
By Mona Mattei
Christina Lake resident Allen Piche is facing another court date for feeding wildlife as the Crown landed new charges in his lap this week. Piche, who made international headlines last year when up to 24 bears were discovered on his property during a marijuana grow operation bust, confessed to feeding wildlife when charged last fall. He was ordered to cease and desist feeding the bears as a part of the process in his case. Spokesman for Crown counsel Neil MacKenzie confirmed that they have gathered further evidence from an investigation by the conservation services that indicates Piche continued to feed the bears. “The offence alleges the feeding of dangerous wildlife, that being bears, between June 1 of this year and Oct. 6,” said MacKenzie. “They are separate matters [the first and second charges] and will be proceeding differently.” This evidence runs contrary to information received in October from the conservation office of the Ministry of Environment. Inspector Aaron Canuel recently stated that there have been 19 bears euthanized between July and September of this year that were likely bears Piche had habituated to human food. “I can’t 100 percent confirm that they’re Piche bears, but given the number that we’ve had to destroy and the size of the bears being large, male bears predominantly, it’s very likely that those bears originated from the Piche property,” said Canuel. “It’s not within the natural hierarchy of bears in a particular area to have that many large male bears all together in one specific area. On average in the Christina Lake area we’re dealing with four to six bears maybe a year. We’re up to 19 – pretty likely that a lot of those bears resulted in severe habituation by Allen Piche.” Piche disputed Canuel’s statements in an email to the public saying that he has confirmed sightings on his property in the same time frame for 19 of the 24 bears in his area. Piche questioned how the 19 dead bears could be from the group he fed last year. Piche refused to comment on the new charges on the advice of his lawyer, Jesse Gelber.
Piche will appear in court on Dec. 13 to face the new charges and Dec. 14 for sentencing in the earlier charges.
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