Fruit Gleaning Program
Goal
During the late summer and fall, Bear Awareness Gardiner organizes volunteers to help remove fruit from the trees in Gardiner and the Gardiner Basin. By removing fruit we can slowly eliminate the generational knowledge of these food sources that bring bears into close proximity of our homes and businesses, and creates a public safety issue as the bears navigate our community, and increases the chances for them to access unnatural foods and become habituated, which is unsafe for both humans and bears.
When picking the fruit from the trees, we typically use volunteers, who have been briefed on how to effectively remove the fruit, and clean the ground of all fallen fruit. You will always have the opportunity to keep any or all the fruit from your property, or we can dispose of it in a bear friendly manner.
Did you know?
If you would like to remove your fruit tree and have it replaced with a non-fruit bearing tree Bear Awareness Gardiner will buy the replacement tree for you!
If you have questions, or would like to replace a fruit tree with a new, non-fruit bearing tree, please contact Evan Stout directly, at [email protected] or 207-441-7199.
