VANCOUVER — The hot breath of a mature black bear woke a B.C. camper in Peace Island Park.
The B.C. Conservation Officer Service said the bear provided the unwelcome wakeup call at around 1 a.m Sunday after entering the man’s wall tent through the screen flap.
“The gentleman awoke to find a bear partly inside his tent and sniffing his torso,” said Sgt. Shawn Brinsky with the conservation service. “The man, of course, screamed and kicked at the bear — and it took off.”
But the bear came back three hours later, before being chased off again by campers.
Conservation officers were called to the site, about 21 kilometres south of Fort St. John, later that morning and the bear was caught at dusk in a culvert trap a short distance away from the campsite.
“For a bear to come right back into area where it had been chased out of twice is very concerning behaviour,” said Brinsky.
Because of the risk it posed, Brinsky said the bear had to be killed.
There was no evidence of attractants, like food, inside the tent, but Brinksy said the hungry bear was obviously conditioned to garbage and had learned to associate humans and man-made structures with food.
“In my 30 years of doing this job, I can tell you that a bear entering a tent is an extremely rare occurrence,” said Brinksy. “That’s unacceptable behaviour and that’s where the risks come.”
