Bear sightings are pretty normal at this time of year as the animals scour for food to fatten up ahead of winter hibernation but a recent sighting in Kelowna was anything but normal.
“I just thought wow, you know this is spectacular and unreal and I can’t believe I am seeing this,” Kelowna homeowner Jeanette Hoft said.
Hoft and her husband Tony live in the city’s Upper Mission area off of Frost Road.
Just before midnight on Sunday, the couple was preparing to go to bed when they looked out their window and saw a dead deer.
“I shouted there is a dead deer on the lawn and then when I looked I saw some movement and I said there is a bear on our lawn and looking a little further, a little longer, it turned out there was a bear, a mother bear with two cubs,” Hoft said. “And they were busy pulling this poor deer, which they had killed, apart, pulling it to pieces.”
The mother bear then dragged the deer further into the couple’s yard, where the trio spent the next several hours.
“They would eat and then they would sleep and then they would eat and then sleep and then they pooped,” Hoft said.
The couple tried to scare the bears off from their upper deck with a powerful flashlight and by making loud noises, but the bears would not budge off the property.
“When we did that, the two cubs chased up the tree, the mother went up the tree, looked at me and barked and that was kind of assumed domination so we thought better just leave them be and come back inside,” Tony Hoft said.
Conservation officers told Global News while there are plenty of bear sightings at this time of year, this one was different.
“It is unusual,” conservation officer Ed Seitz said. “Normally they are into garbage and other human type food sources not their natural food source in the middle of the city.”
The sighting has conservation officers once again reminding the public to be bear aware.
“If they do have bears in those areas it’s definitely a wake-up call to make sure the attractants are eliminated and cleaned up,” Seitz said.
The Hofts did report the sighting to the conservation office and called the City of Kelowna, which cleaned up the deer carcass.
The couple has also put up signs in the neighborhood warning area residents about the bear sighting and to be careful.
“Seeing the sheer power of them ripping this deer apart, it was actually really scary because you see how powerful they are and how big they are,” Jeanette Hoft said.
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