A black bear feasting on garbage in an alley in downtown Revelstoke was put down dramatically and publicly late Tuesday afternoon.
The incident has led to calls for change from all sides.
Some residents say the incident was traumatic to watch and argue this incident shows Revelstoke should have its own conservation officer.
Meanwhile, officials are warning that euthanizing bears is the sad result of people not doing enough to secure bear attractants.
The conservation officer who shot the bear is calling on locals and visitors in the mountain community to step up and take more care to prevent attracting bears to the community.
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Bartol responded to an alley in downtown Revelstoke around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. There he found a bear eating garbage at a dumpster that had pails of food left around it.
Bartol said his only alternative was to euthanize the bear.
“Once it has gotten to that stage where it is walking up to people, eating food very casually, people are around while we are trying to chase it off. And it’s just stuck on the food source, it’s not a candidate for relocation. There is only one alternative and it is unfortunately euthanasia,” Bartol said.
Bartol said he shot the bear in its shoulder. At that point the animal got out of the alley and turned onto a downtown street.
“He hunkered down against a wall in a little doorway alcove as he was going down. I figured he was going to die fairly quickly but he was obviously in a lot of pain. I discharged a second round and he died immediately,” Bartol said.
The bear was killed on a street lined with shops about a block from the back alley garbage can where it had been eating.
“It was the most horrendous thing I’ve ever seen and I’m a hunter,” said Catherine Moore who owns a salon nearby.
Moore is critical of the way the incident was handled. She recalls seeing the bear wounded and “hobbling through town.”
“Until he could get a clear shot that bear should not have been shot,” Moore said. “If you have to put it down, tranquilize it, take it out of town and do it that way. Don’t do the display that took place here.”
Bartol defends every part of his actions during that incident. He said if he had attempted to tranquilize the bear, it could have taken up to 10 minutes for the bear to lose consciousness. Bartol said that would have created a very risky situation for the public.
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“I understand people don’t like to see guns in the street, but I had an injured bear that I felt needed to be euthanized very quickly. I held the my rifle upright so the barrel was pointed straight up. It was never pointed at anybody at anytime.”
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Bartol argues this incident shows the harm caused by not securing bear attractants.
“We has humans are not doing enough to reduce conflicts with bears. This is avoidable,” he said. “I think if we could reduce attractants, we wouldn’t have to euthanize bears at all.”
The incident has also led to calls for Revelstoke to have its own conservation officer. Currently, the community is mostly served by conservation officers out of Golden.
The province argues Revelstoke doesn’t receive a lower level of service even though it does not have a locally based conservation officer. Officials say that like other first responders, conservation officers cover a region and are able to go wherever the need is.
The bear shot in downtown Revelstoke was one of nine euthanized by conservation officers in Revelstoke since Tuesday. Bartol say eight of the animals were habituated to humans.
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