Conservation officers are still searching for a bear that attacked a three-year-old girl in Maple Ridge, B.C., on Sunday morning.
Neighbours are being told to stay clear of the area around the 12300 block of 240 Street.
Anaiyah Lekei is now recovering after surgery. The bear clawed and bit her several times on the head, neck and back.
Her mother said she was on her patio when the bear attacked.
“Suddenly, she started screaming just the blood-curdling scream and my husband was able to get to the patio first,” Andrea Lekei said.
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“He was able to get the bear off of her. She was under the bear and the bear had already attacked and was mauling her and was about to go down for another bite and he was able to get the bear off of her.”
Anaiyah’s mother and grandmother tried to stop the bleeding with towels while her father scared the bear off, eventually shooting it between the eyes with a bow and arrow.
The bear ran off. About 30 minutes later, RCMP shot a black bear in a neighbour’s yard, but a necropsy determined it was not the same bear from Sunday’s attack.
Neighbours say there are a number of bears in the area, some of whom have cubs with them.
Anaiyah was airlifted to BC Children’s Hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.
A GoFundMe has been set up to raise money for the family.
They showed a picture of their fence in another outlet. Not much of a bear deterrence. Appeared to be a 4′ chain link fence.
the more humans encroach into the wildlife habitats of bears etc, the more these type of things will happen,,,maybe, we always blame the animal
Of course the Father was charged with firing a weapon. Mandatory I believe.
I wonder why they Left A. 3-year-old unattended. She’s still not old enough enough to be left alone on a pad io
Her mother said she was on her patio when the bear attacked. THAT PATIO USED TO BE THE BEARS HOME , YOIU STOLED IT’S HOME. WHERE’S IT SUPPOSED TO GO ? B I _ C H
WAS SHE PLAYING IN the BEARS BACKYARD ? IF SO, WHAT TO SAY ? GO KILL ANOTHER INNOCENT BEAR JUST LOOKING FOR FOOD TO SURVIVE. LIKE WE ALL DO
And to to the first commenter. It was the RCMP who shot that bear not the Conservation Officers. Double Duh!
Queue all the animal lovers here to completely ignore the fact that a small child was almost killed by a bear.
There is no shortage of black bears in BC. Apparently there is something like 170,000 of them. 170,000!!! And I each year 10s of thousands new ones.
If a bear is in a populated area it needs to be removed by any means possible. Period
Human life comes first.
As for the idiot below, maybe the arrow fell out, broke off, bounced off or was pulled out by the bear. Duh!!
kill all the bears, that is what the so called
“Conservation officers?” always do. The idiots shot a bear and the report said the man shot the bear with and arrow between the eyes, so the bear shot did it have an arrow between its eyes? Nope, just shoot the bears. Ofcourse the neighbors whine saying there are a number of bears with cubs. This is what happens when people take over the bears territory and the idiots that move here leave garbage out, or don’t clean their bqs and even feeding the bears, then they cry that a bear is in their yards then call the killer conservation officers and say KILL KILL AND KILL MORE