Northern Lights Estate Winery is hosting its annual apple collection program to help keep bears out of the Prince George streets while raising funds for the Northern Bear Awareness Society.
Terrance Badham, Northern Lights Estate Winery E-commerce Manager says for every pound of apples donated to the winery, $0.50 will be donated to the organization.
“Every year we collect apples by donation, we grow some ourselves of course too and we use those apples to make our apple wine, the reason that we do that is to help prevent bear destruction,” he said.
Badham explained that if apple trees are picked and the fruit is kept out of people’s backyards, it eliminates the temptation for bears to wander into neighborhoods.
“The biggest thing is, we’re just trying to keep bears out of the community as much as possible because ultimately if the bears become reliant on a food source from our backyard whether that’s garbage cans or apple trees it can lead to them no longer relying on getting food from the wild.”
Additionally, for every bottle of apple wine made, an extra $0.50 is donated to the Northern Bear Awareness Society.
“We have big bins here at the winery for people to come drop them off, or the other thing is we will go to people’s houses and pick them as well,” he said.
Badham says the program has been really busy since it was initiated on August 13th, and they’ve already gone to 20-30 houses to pick apples.
As a result, anyone looking to get their apples picked by the Northern Lights crew will be put on a waitlist.
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