Bear/Shutterstock
A mother's quick actions saved her child from a harrowing encounter with a bear over the long weekend.
The incident happened on Saturday morning in the Westwood Plateau area of Coquitlam.
Conservation officer Eric Tyukodi says the child was in the front passenger seat and the family was loading groceries into the van to take to one of their neighbours.
The mother and one of the children went back inside to get more food and came back outside to find a black bear near the vehicle going after a bag of oats.
The mother managed to scare the bear away by activating the van's panic alarm and the bear wandered into a neighbours' yard taking the bag of oats along to eat.
By the time conservation officers arrived and searched the area the animal was gone.
This bear went *into the van* of my neighbor this morning, and took food out of the back....while their son was inside it! He’s been tagged twice already, so they likely have to destroy this beautiful animal. Please don’t feed bears or leave your garbage out. #FedBearDeadBear pic.twitter.com/I8t3I0jDP4
— Iain Black (@iainblack_gvbot) September 1, 2018
"No contact was made with the child and there was no damage to the vehicle itself," Tyukodi says but the situation is "concerning" because the bear appears to lack a fear of people, be habituated to humans an have a high food conditioning.
The animal had two tags in its ear suggesting previous encounters with people and the investigation is ongoing. "We definitely want to remove [the bear] from that area."
