A grizzly bear went on a rampage Thursday and attacked a group of students from a tribal elementary school near Canada’s central west coast, leaving 11 people injured, according to emergency officials in British Columbia.
The attack took place while the class, a group of about 20, was taking a walk while on a lunch break in Bella Coola, about 600 miles northwest of Vancouver. Two individuals were in critical condition, according to the CBC, and another two were seriously injured.
Authorities said additional people were treated at the scene but did not require transport to hospital.
Veronica Schooner, a mother of a child in the fourth and fifth grade elementary class, told the Canadian Press that teachers fought off the attacking animal.
One male teacher “got the whole brunt of it” and was among the people taken by helicopter from the scene, she said.
Schooner said her son Alvarez, 10, was so close to the animal he “even felt its fur” as he was “running for his life.” more
A few years ago a man on the west coast of BC was attacked by a mama grizzly bear. I think he unknowingly got too close to her cubs. He was hurt bad, but got stitched up and survived. His strongest memory of the encounter was the bear’s horrible smelly fish breath. Coastal bears eat a lot of both fresh and rotting salmon. Female salmon die and start to rot right after laying their eggs.
Hmph. Great thinking: take kids on an outing in bear country without at least one bear-caliber firearm carried by a proficient shooter. Oh, yeah, that’s right: mighty hard to do that in oh-so-polite Canada.
Bears can’t read signs, don’t know the law and don’t fukin care! They only know their territory and “Teachers” should sure as hell know this!
Occurs to me a firearm sure could have helped here. Too bad about those laws.
I DATED A BC GIRL AROUND THAT AREA IN THE FALL (DUH), WENT ON A 5 MILE RUN DOWN A TRAIL JUST LIKE I WOULD’VE IN CA (DOUBLE DUH)
HALFWAY THRU REALIZED IT WAS GRIZZ COUNTRY BY THE PRINTS AND SCAT AND TURNED AROUND, 2ND HALF OF THE RUN WAS A BREEZE, SET A NEW PR, NOT LIKE IT WOULD’VE MADE A DIFFERENCE WITH A 40MPH ANGRY BEAR
@Benito – reminds me of the story of the guy who accidentally ended up in a field with a huge, angry bull. There was one tree in the field, and it looked like he would make it to the tree – but the lowest branch was 15 feet above the ground. He leaped… and missed the branch. But he caught it on the way down. 🙂
I think you would have outrun an angry bear!
Marlin 1895SS left at home? I have a buddy that rebores a LOT of Remington 760 30-06 pumps in 30-06 to 9.3×62 as well.
Being a VICTIM is the most important thing. You get sympathy, pats on the back, a platform in which to speak for those attention-seeking disorders, maybe an award.
You smartly arm yourself and hurt the assailant, then you get scorn and people searching the law library trying to figure out how to punish you.
Very heroic actions of the individual teachers. Very stupid of the school board, country, and gun laws. The government likes us to be victims to everything including the government up here. Not even a 12 gua with buckshot allowed. You would be charged with illegal hunting. Trust me!
And I know, buckshot ain’t for bears but at least a newbie might land a few in the face and snout ….
Oh hum. Why is this teacher putting children lives in danger with no ability to protect them? Or, why is this teacher trying to feed the bears? Canadians are fucking stupid. No offense honestly. We’re not far behind. 44 mag min. Should have had some escorts with some big bore rifles. But hey, I guess the kids got to experience the real deal.
Although the article doesn’t mention protective measures, this is a tiny town hundreds of miles north of Vancouver. Looks like an amazing place to visit. But I would expect locals to have a pretty good sense of risk around there.
That there is a grizzly in late November that isn’t hibernating suggests that it is weak and hungry – a healthy, well-fed bear would already be down for the winter. They may have figured that there wouldn’t be any bears around for that reason. Same mistake Tim Treadwell made.
“Looks like an amazing place to visit. But I would expect locals to have a pretty good sense of risk around ther”
Apparently not. You know one thing about bears? They’re unpredictable as hell. Locals should know. Locals probably do know. But you’re dealing with an elitist school administration. In my opinion there’s zero excuses for this except guns bad.
At close quarters a 44 Magnum pistol is the BARE minimum. What a man really needs is a powerful, large diameter, heavily constructed bullet fired from a handy rifle or shotgun. Something like 348 and 45/70 in lever action, 375 and 458 in a bolt action and 3” 12ga Lightfield Commanders or Hastings Sabot Slugs from a shotgun have been among the most popular, and for good reason.
They should be thankful things weren’t worse.
There could have been a male hiker passing them as close as 400 yards away.
Dadof4: Right. I wonder how many of those (female) teachers were among those who would feel safer if they met a bear in the woods instead of a man?
headline from the north? “canada indicts real humans for defending themselves against bears”…11 colonizers were said to have received slight injuries…