If the grizzly that attacked a B.C. school group is found, what happens next?
CBC
The effort to locate the bear that attacked a school group near Bella Coola, B.C., last Friday is on. What happens after that is still in question.
Bear encounters are not rare in Canada, especially on British Columbia’s Central Coast. However, attacks like the one last week that involve large groups are, according to conservation experts CBC News spoke to.
But there's still discussion and debate about what could or should happen to the bears involved if they're found and definitively linked to the incident.
There are about 13,000 grizzlies living in B.C., many of them in the central coast region.
The area near 4 Mile subdivision on the traditional territories of the Nuxalk Nation where last Friday's attack occurred has what’s considered a pretty high bear population — about 22 bears per 1,000 square kilometres, according to provincial counts.
B.C. Conservation teams track where bears are moving, set bait in locations they expect they'll be, and set up traps.
Once a bear has been captured and immobilized, officers work to match the animal to witness accounts and evidence collected at the scene of an attack — including tracks, hair, or anything the bear might have bitten down on during the incident.
“Even further, the bears left some forensic evidence on the clothing of the victims,” said Kevin Van Damme, inspector with the B.C. Conservation Officer Service (BCCOS). “From there … we'll do lab work to make sure that we have the right bear.”
According to grizzly experts, as the size of a group of people goes up, the less likely it is that a bear will attack.
Brian Falconer of B.C.’s Raincoast Conservation Foundation says that to his knowledge, there has never been an attack by a grizzly bear on a group of more than six people.
“This is not rare,” he said of the Bella Coola attack that involved at least 20 people. “This is unique.”
He says we may never know what caused the bear to attack. He says bears have different personalities and comfort levels in terms of personal space.
“It depends if you're protecting cubs. If you've just had a battle with another male to protect your cubs, you're on hyper alert.”
Authorities have not indicated whether anyone in the group that was attacked ran, which experts say could also heighten a bear’s reaction.
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