WATCH: A camping trip for a young BC couple has ended in tragedy after a bear attack near Mackenzie. Randene Neill reports.
The BC’s Coroners Service, conservation officers and RCMP are investigating a bear attack in northern British Columbia.
A man’s body was found on the side of a service road near Mackenzie, north of Prince George, yesterday.
Global News has now learned the victim is 27-year-old Ward O’Connor.
According to O’Connor’s father Danny, Ward and his fiancée were camping about 10 kilometers along Parsnip forest service road.
O’Connor’s fiancée slept inside a motorhome Saturday night, while Ward slept by a campfire. When his fiancée got up in the morning, she saw his body in the bushes nearby and drove to his father’s place to get help.
“I couldn’t understand her at first and I had to calm her down and then she told me that she had found him an d that he was bitten by a bear,” said father Danny O’Connor.
When RCMP officers arrived, they found a black bear and wolf nearby. Both animals were shot and killed.
The victim’s father says it appears his son was killed by the bear because his injuries are consistent with a bear attack.
Conservation officers are performing a necropsy on the 300-pound male black bear.
Ward’s family says he was a young man who loved life.
“His mother wants everybody to know he was a loving son, a free spirit and an all-around nice guy,”said father Danny. “To know Ward was to love Ward.”
Ward and his fiancée had a lot to look forward to. They were set to get married this summer in a spot close to the area where he died.
-with files from Randene Neill and Jon Azpiri
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