As B.C. conservation officers continued to search for the three grizzlies involved in Thursday’s attack on an elementary school group in Bella Coola, residents say the incident reflects years of rising bear encounters in the remote Central Coast community.
At a news conference Sunday, Sgt. Jeff Tyre with the B.C. Conservation Officer Service said officers have installed trail cameras and tightened the search area to a few kilometres around the 4 Mile subdivision where the attack happened, believing that the bears are likely to return there.
Tyre said only one bear was spotted in the past 24 hours, and it was far from the attack site.
Three students and one teacher were hospitalized Thursday when the bear attacked a group of about 20 people, including teachers and Grade 4 and 5 students, in Bella Coola, a community about 420 kilometres northwest of Vancouver as the crow flies.
The group was on a field trip and eating lunch at the time.
Intense search for 3 grizzly bears after B.C. schoolchildren attacked
Conservation officers have since said they believe a mother bear with two cubs was likely involved in the attack.
Bella Coola is a small unincorporated community surrounded by steep mountains and dense rainforest.
Known as the Gateway to the Great Bear Rainforest, it is a region where encounters between people and wildlife are not uncommon.
But residents say interactions have intensified in recent years.
Nuxalk Nation hereditary chief Noel Pootlass said a new population of grizzlies began moving into the valley around 2018, after being pushed from their territory by logging, drought and forest fires.
“The population is so big now, it probably doubled or tripled in our valley,” he said.
He says the community has dealt with dozens of incidents over the past seven years.
“Bears have been breaking into homes and they go on porches where there’s dog food or cat food…and that’s a huge risk for people.”
Pootlass says the Nuxalk have traditionally had a respectful relationship with bears but the pressures of logging and climate change have altered that balance.
Local resident Maryanne Gurr said grizzly bears have become a regular and unnerving presence on her property.
She recalled seeing a mother bear and three cubs in her front garden a few years ago. When she tried to slip out the back door she found two more full-grown bears in her backyard.
“I was in tears, I was hollering,” she said.
In another incident, a bear broke into her home and stole food from her freezer.
“There was pork chops and homemade chili and chicken soup that I’d made so I could eat during the week and it was all over the floor and all over the backyard.”
“I can’t sleep at night thinking they’ll come back.”
Despite her fear, she says she doesn’t want to see bears killed.
“I like bears. I just want a solution where we’re all safe together,” she said. “They’re breaking into houses and something has to be done or there’s going to be more people hurt or killed.”
The attack on the school children and teachers has renewed debate on the province’s ban on hunting grizzly bears. B.C. banned grizzly bear hunting at the end of 2017 with the exception of hunting by First Nations for food, social and ceremonial purposes.
Conservation officers say their current focus is to identify the bears involved in Thursday’s attack.
Sgt. Tyre said there are quite a few bears in the area and the goal is to safely trap the animals, collect DNA and work with wildlife veterinarians to determine whether the bears caught are the ones involved in the attack. He said any bears caught that weren’t involved in the attack will be relocated.
No decisions have been made about what to do with the bears involved in the attack if caught.
Residents have been asked to avoid the 4 Mile subdivision, to stay indoors and not search for the bears themselves.
