An elementary school group and teachers in the remote community of Bella Coola were recently attacked by a grizzly bear while they traversing a trail near Highway 20 yesterday afternoon.
The attack resulted in several people needing to go to the hospital, two of whom are said to be in critical condition.
According to the BC Wildlife Federation, there have been close to a 1,000 calls a year to the Conservation Officer Service about grizzly bear and human conflicts since the grizzly hunt was ended in BC back in 2017.
The Wildlife Federation’s Executive Director, Jesse Zeman, also spoke about why these kinds of negative interactions can occur;
“There’s a bunch of contributing pieces that people can try to avoid, like bears being food conditioned. But over time, if there’s no management of these behaviours, bears that are bold or get themselves into trouble pass those habits down to future generations and then the problem grows pretty dramatically.”
The BC Conservation Officer Service have provided an update on if they had found the bear and what they think might have led to the bear attacking;
“The bear has not been located at this time. Preliminary information suggests the bear may have been previously injured. Captured mitigation techniques have been set to capture and evaluate the bear in question. We recognize this incident is distressing for the community. We are in close contact with the Nuxalk Nation as our investigation continues.”