Photo: J LM / YouTube
A man is lucky to be alive after a large female grizzly bear charged at him in Bella Coola.
The man posted a video of the encounter to his YouTube channel, where he describes why he ventured onto the lawn while the bear was on it.
He describes that the sow and her cubs had moved onto his lawn. What's more, he states that they were coming to the area regularly and were not afraid of noise. As a result, he wanted to get the animals off his property.
"Went outside, from underneath the deck, shot once in the air, and sow started charging so I ran back inside the house," he describes.
"She then started walking her cubs away and took that as a sign of submission, then went outside again and when she got 65 yards away, I shot in the air again to keep pushing her along After that shot, the sow turned around and looked at me and I yelled at her to keep moving her on."
After this, however, he says that the sow charged with her head down and ears back.
In addition, he adds that he, " worked with bears for 30+ years on the river with Fisheries, and gone through repeated bear training with a shotgun, I knew that if I turned and ran, there would have been contact I didn’t want to blind her by hitting her in the face so aimed at her right side to hopefully trip her up to buy me enough time to run inside the house."
Grizzly Bear Charges
https://youtu.be/o0uM7s8hprc
"There was no blood, no hair and I know she’ll be sore but she’ll now think twice about approaching people I talked it over with the local COs, showed them the video, and they said I was totally justified in defending myself and family. I’m just glad it was me and not the kids out there," he added in the description.
