A horrific bear attack that sent four people to the hospital, including three young children, is sending shockwaves through a small town in north central B.C.
The group, including students in grades four and five, were on a field trip in Bella Coola. They encountered the bear around 1 p.m. on Thursday when they were having lunch on a trail near Highway 20 and Acwsalcta School, according to RCMP North District Corporal Madonna Saunderson.
Multiple teachers physically intervened, using bear spray and a bear banger, to drive the bear away, but an adult and three students were hurt.
BC Emergency Health Services says it received a call at 1:46 p.m. about an animal attack on a trail near Highway 20.
“Two ambulances and a community paramedic responded to the scene. Paramedics provided emergency medical treatment to four patients and transported them to hospital,” said Brian Twaites, a paramedic public information officer with EHS.
“Two patients were in critical condition and two were in serious condition. Another seven people were cared for at the scene but did not require hospital transport.”
Four people remain in the hospital as of Friday afternoon.
Another seven people were injured but did not require hospitalization, the B.C. government said in an update on Friday.
EHS worked with the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre to transport the victims to hospital due to weather conditions, according to Twaites.
Acwsalcta School in Bella Coola said it will be closed on Friday due to the bear incident and will be providing support for those who need them.
In a statement on Friday morning, the school said it is proud of the students and staff who showed courage and came together as a community to help each other.
“(Thursday) was frightening and your resilience was truly admirable,” the school said.
Parents of the students are calling the event traumatizing.
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“And I just picked him up and he was already so traumatized, his shoes were all muddy and I guess he hurt his foot and (his) teacher said that something happened and that I should go and see him at school,” Veronica Schooner, the mother of a boy on the field trip, told Global News.
The B.C Conservation Officer Service says it is on scene with RCMP and asked residents to stay out of the forested and river area near the 4 Mile subdivision of the community until further notice.
Word of the attack first came through the Nuxalk Nation’s social media, which said a “bear incident” occurred in the 4 Mile area. It later said that an aggressive bear was in the area, cautioning residents not to go looking for it.
In a statement, Nuxalk Nation Chief Samuel Schooner said, “We are devastated for the individuals and families impacted by the bear incident.”
“All individuals involved are receiving medical support and our priority is to ensure that they are safe. I have connected with the family members who are affected and my team and I are in the process of gathering more information to share with our community.”
Schooner said at a live update on Friday that he is so proud of the way the community has come together in this unprecedented event.
“I believe a lot of it had to do with our ancestors,” he said.
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“That, you know, they came. They came to help us. They showed up, you know, they brought everybody here.”
A team of Conservation Officers worked overnight to locate the grizzly bear, the service stated in an updated release, but the bear was not sighted.
Efforts to capture and assess the bear are resuming on Friday and the Conservation Officer Service said this is a dangerous situation with this bear still at large.
Kevin Van Damme with the Conservation Service said they are still working to determine why the bear attacked.
“In my 34 years of experience, I have not seen an attack like this with a large group of people,” he said.
“So this is extremely rare and I think the public needs to understand that part.”
The B.C. Wildlife Federation said a few recent attacks in the province are a reminder that residents are increasingly in conflict with these giant predators.
“Grizzlies are the animal most likely to attack humans in British Columbia, which is home to 15,000 of Canada’s 26,000 grizzly bears,” the organization said in a statement.
An elk hunter fought off a grizzly attack near Cranbrook on Oct. 2 and later died from his injuries. A man hiking near Cochrane, Alta., was mauled by a grizzly bear a few weeks ago and has survived his injuries.
“This is the new normal,” the organization said.
It said that calls about grizzly and human conflicts have risen to almost 1,000 a year following the end of the grizzly hunt in B.C. in 2017.
Prior to that, the Conservation Officer Service responded to between 300 and 500 a year.
“When the hunt was closed, we predicted that over time human-grizzly conflicts would increase, but we also know that bears that learn bad behaviours teach those same behaviours to their offspring,” B.C. Wildlife Federation executive director Jesse Zeman said in a statement.
“This will keep getting worse until science-based wildlife management is reinstated.
“The grizzly hunt was terminated in B.C. due to popular opinion, with no scientific rationale. That was a shortsighted move. With no hunting pressure, grizzlies and humans will increasingly occupy the same spaces with inevitable consequences,” said Zeman.
“Our members in the Creston area say they no longer feel safe walking outside due to the rising number of frightening grizzly encounters. Communities across B.C. are coming to us with concerns about bear conflicts.”
Anyone with information, or to report bear sightings in Bella Coola, should contact the Report All Poachers and Polluters (RAPP) line at 1-877-952-7277.
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