Man Injured, Bear Killed In Hunting Encounter
Prince George, B.C. – A hunter is recovering from injuries suffered late Thursday night in an encounter with a bear inside his tent northeast of Prince George.
Conservation Officer Denny Chretien of Mackenzie, who works in the Omineca Zone of the B.C. Conservation Officer Service, says they received a call around 11 pm on Thursday, October 8th indicating that a person had had an altercation with a grizzly bear.
Chretien says “the gentleman did come in and he had sustained some injuries from the bear to his one leg area and, on top of his shoulder and the back, the bear had punctured, tried to looked like bite him and had created some puncture wounds to his leg and inner thigh and had scratched him on the back.”
Chretien says “the bear was acting in an abnormal behavior by going into a wall tent that had the door open to let some air in. And of course it was dark, it was 23:00 hours, you can’t really see much at that time of day and, I don’t really want to call it an attack, but the conflict and the contact was made between the bear and the man but it turned out not to be a grizzly bear, it was a black bear.”
“When the contact was made the bear bit the gentleman, probably probing to see what it was exactly. Then of course it turned out to be a human and that man then screamed and yelled. The person next to him in the wall tent, who was sleeping at the time, grabbed a firearm to protect the man and discharged a round at the bear, and that round somehow made its way through the bear and into the gentleman’s elbow.”
“We can’t determine that at this point. We did complete a necropsy. I can’t tell you if it did go through and through and what happened, but in this incident a shot was fired once from one man and hit the gentleman. I think it may have been like a ricochet shot or deviated shot through the bear or somehow may have passed by the bear but it hit the gentleman in the elbow.”
Chretien says “then the bear released the gentleman and left the tent for a short moment and then came back, and when it came back there was two other guys in another separate wall tent that had now followed the bear and were releasing rounds to the bear using shotguns. The bear was dispatched by the other members of the hunting party and the bear was deceased in the wall tent that he originally went into.”
Chretien says there were at least four, and possibly up to six hunters in the hunting party. And he adds the wall tent was sizeable, 10 by 12, “we’re not talking little pup tents we’re talking hunting wall tents.” He also says the man who received the injuries in the encounter was the person closest to the door of the tent.
The incident occurred in a moderately-isolated area off the Lower Torpy Forest Service Road at the 27.8 kilometre mark, which is 2 ½ hours northeast of Prince George. The injured man was transported to University Hospital of Northern B.C. in Prince George for treatment.
Chretien says he completed a necropsy on the bear “and I found that the bear had no food in its intestine nor its stomach. We presume that he hadn’t fed for at least 24 hours. The bear looked like he may have been searching for food.”
“This time of year they’re in a state of feeding frenzy to get themselves to a level to get through their hibernation. They need to feed and this bear may have been triggered to do a natural thing, and that is to increase his food levels, because he was already looking to be a little bit hungry, very little to nothing in his intestine and in his stomach.”
“The camp was not dirty, it was not an attracting issue at the time, but you know any minor foods would trigger a bear’s interest and curiosity, especially when its elevated with the upcoming hibernation.” Chretien says from the necropsy, teeth wear and overall size he believes the boar was between 6 and 8 years old.
“And he was very healthy, had a lot of fat content on the muscle and also in his visceral content he had a lot of fat so overall healthy, no indications of any physical or any conditions that would have prompted him to behave outside of the natural, normal bear behavior.”
He says the bear weighed 159 kilos, which is 350 pounds.
The hometowns of those in the hunting party have not been released.
Comments
Denny, you gotta work on on your commenting to the media, clean it up a bit.
Otherwise, glad the guys able to talk about it.
I have a few problems with hunters.
Those hunters that set up camp and tell other hunters that this is their hunting area and you can’t hunt here.
Those that park a vehicle on a road, blocking it so that it is inaccessible
to other hunters.
Those, that when I am going to work, will not pull over and let me by.
These are all chargeable offenses.
You can not obstruct other traffic, even on a logging road, so please get the heck out of my way so I can go to work.
99% of hunters are great, but there are some foolish ones out there that think no trespassing signs don’t apply to them as a landowner found out north west of town. If you want to lose your privilege to hunt, go ahead,
screw up, you won’t be hunting for 1 to 3 years.
When you’re shooting at an animal on a curve in the road, bear in mind there may be someone driving toward you.
Bears hear a rifle shot in the woods, it’s like a dinner bell to them, so have someone on lookout when you’re cleaning up your animal, especially in an area where you can’t see the attack coming.
Our moose population is down about 75% in some areas so the pressure is on. Take some caution folks, make sure of your shot, don’t wound.
Well said Griz2, I second the comments, especially as regards road hunters.
metalman.
I wonder if they had food in their tent?
If you camp/hunt smart you can avoid many of these issues.
One other is hunters that do not obey the NO HUNTING signs on rural private property. This year I put up game cams so we can see what can be legal done about it with photos.
Someone needs to learn proper english. Either the CO or the writer of the article. Maybe both. The fact is that at this time of year bears are in search of food. When people are in thee bush, they increase the chances of a bear incident. There are so many bears that the chances are quite high.
Two comments were made about the quotations from the Conservation Officer. I have been noticing Don Hawkins’ reporting style almost from the beginning.
What I believe we are reading are verbatim or almost verbatim transcriptions from recorded comments made to the author. It is his style. He might take some umm and ahhs out of the recordings, but more or less seems to leave everything else intact.
It makes for reports with lots of words. If one has a computerized transcription program it also shortens the time it takes to write a report.
Kind of handy for the reporter. However, it often does not make for easy and quick reading by the audience.
Grizzly2 I agree with all your points except for one depending on what you mean – Those hunters that set up camp and tell other hunters that this is their hunting area and you can’t hunt here.
When we set up camp it’s at the end of a road, there is at least 3 of us, usually closer to 5, and we’ll all be on foot past our camp. We have issues when someone will park by our camp and start walking/quadding in past camp. We know the general direction everyone went and know which direction will be safe to take a shot in, other people coming in don’t. So yes, we’ll mention to people trying to come in that hey, there’s 3 or 4 people on foot in there already and don’t bother. Plus it’s kinda a given that if there’s 3 or 4 vehicles at camp and no one around, those people are on foot and somewhat close.
But I agree with you that people set up can’t claim a large area. We’ve had that happen where people set up at say 2km will tell us we can’t hunt till we pass 20km because that’s their area (random numbers) and they have the side roads.
Sounds like these hunters had an IQ somewhere around room temperature.
Lots of areas painted at the beginning of the season ” private Property keep out” funny,I found it ironic that in the middle of no were there is private property with a high concentration of animals. Now that is criminal.
Yes there is a lot of dick heads out there trying to claim good hunting areas for them selves. Common sense would say, if you see a vehicle parked on the side of the road ” keep in mind” chances are there is someone hunting in that area.
If you see a vehicle blocking a road which has several miles of hunting area past it plow it off the FN ROAD! and keep hunting.
peegee, you’re right on. People who can’t understand what you describe are the 1% who couldn’t care less, and will shoot in an area where there are other hunters. It’s common sense, but for some, well, I can’t print it.
I have heard that most of these folks that tell you, you can’t hunt in an area are usually from the lower mainland,have two weeks to get an animal,
and have the audacity to leave all their garbage in the bush, had it happen to me.
The pressure’s on this weekend, everyone and their dog are out there, so I stay home. Since I walk and hunt, don’t want to be mistaken for an animal.
I’ll wait mid week and go git my deer.
pg101, what in the world makes you say that? Bears will get curious, their sense of smell is incredible, could have been foam that ketchup was spilled on. Read the article again, they did everything right.
Glad that folks like peegee and metalman are out there, hope to meet them, they’re safe to hunt with.
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