After fatal attack, the ‘dangerous work’ of trapping and testing grizzly bears begins in Bella Coola

As the days tick down to winter, salmon leave the saltwater estuaries near Bella Coola and migrate up rivers and streams to spawn, drawing grizzly bears to the valley in the heart of B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest.

For the second year in a row, conservation officers will be in Bella Coola too, trapping and testing bears to find the animal responsible for an attack that killed a mother and daughter earlier this week.

A similar effort last November in the days following an attack on a group of students and teachers on a field trip near the Bella Coola River was ultimately unsuccessful. The “highly dangerous work” netted eight bears, which were eventually released after they were found not to be responsible for injuring three children and one adult.

While officials warned it was “too early to speculate” whether the same bear may have been involved in both attacks, conservationists said attacks remain rare and it is important to understand the factors that bring people and bears into contact.

“Bella Coola is probably the most densely populated area in B.C. for both grizzly bears and people,” said Nicholas Scapillati, executive-director of the Grizzly Bear Foundation.

“It is a community plunked in the middle of some of the best grizzly bear habitat in the province,” said Lana Ciarniello, an independent researcher with Aklak Wildlife Consulting.

Ciarniello said in fall, grizzly bears come down to the Bella Coola Valley to eat salmon and fatten up for their winter hibernation, a process called hyperphagia.

“Bears don’t have a supermarket,” she said. “They’re simply going where the food is concentrated.”

Anyone living or spending time in Bella Coola right now should be vigilant any time they leave home, as well as carry bear spray and make noise, she said. Most encounters between grizzly bears and humans are related to surprising the bear, while attacks often involve bears with cubs, which remain with their mothers for two to three years.

Both Ciarniello and Scapillati said they were deeply saddened by the attack that killed Jenny Balcarras and her 19-year-old daughter Selah Reed. Searchers found the body of one of the women near the Snooka West Trail on Monday afternoon, a day after the pair were reported missing. The body of the second woman was found 150 metres away on Tuesday. It is believed the mother and daughter had been out for a walk on the trail near their home when they were killed.

Scapillati said coexisting with bears means understanding where they are likely to be at different times of year, whether that is in alpine meadows rooting for glacier lily bulbs in spring, feasting on berries in summer, or in the valley in search of salmon in fall.

Other factors, such as habitat loss, including from recent logging or increasing urbanization, can concentrate bears into smaller areas and bring people and bears into closer contact.

“Grizzly bears are such an important part of the ecology of B.C. … and culturally, they are so important to the Nuxalk Nation,” said Scapillati. “But living alongside them presents real challenges.”