Friend and I were in BC long time ago. Driving up the road he sees a bear. Wants a picture. He gets out with bag of cookies. I have camera. He throws a cookie toward bear to get bear closer. Throws another cookie, bear comes closer. Bear realizes that he can have all the cookies at once. Bear charges. Friend drops bag of cookies and flees. I get really good pictures. We were stupid kids back then but I’ve still got the pictures.
Bear kills mother as children watch
By The Associated Press
LIARD RIVER, British Columbia — A mother from Texas was mauled to death by a black bear in a remote park in British Columbia as her two children watched helplessly.
A man who tried to save Patti McConnell, 37, of Paris, Texas, also was killed by the bear. McConnell’s 13-year-old son and a college student were mauled by the animal as well but survived.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Raymond Kitchen, 56, of Fort Nelson, B.C., was killed while trying to save McConnell. Kitchen is believed to have been an experienced hunter who was familiar with the habits of bears.
Hikers who witnessed the attack Thursday night at Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park threw rocks and sticks to try to distract the bear without avail.
Authorities said McConnell had been walking through the brush between hot springs with her son Kelly and daughter Kristen, 7, when the vicious attack occurred.
The bear was shot and killed by a tourist who rushed to get a weapon.
The park was evacuated soon after and will remain closed while provincial officials and police investigate.
“I think it’s pretty much one of the most brutal ways to die, having your entire body ripped apart,” said Jayme Melrose, an employee of a nearby lodge.
Kelly McConnell and a 20-year-old Calgary man suffered non-life-threatening injuries and were airlifted to Fort Nelson, 125 miles southwest of the park near the British Columbia-Yukon border.
Kelly was later transferred to B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.
The Calgary man, one of several university students conducting research in the park, suffered serious leg injuries and was transferred to a hospital in his hometown Friday. Police would not released his name at his request.
The dead woman’s mother, Jan Reed, said her daughter was planning to settle in Anchorage, Alaska, and was traveling with her children on a meandering route from Paris through the United States and Canada.
“They were going up there to make a new life for themselves,” she told the Vancouver Sun newspaper as she prepared to visit her grandson in the Vancouver hospital.
Reed plans to pick up her granddaughter, who was staying with an RCMP officer’s family in Fort Nelson, and collect her daughter’s remains to take back to Paris for a funeral next week.
Provincial officials said it was the first fatal bear attack in British Columbia this year. Six people were injured and one person was killed by bears in the province last year, while there were 11 injuries and two deaths in 1995.
The chances of being attacked by a black bear remains extremely rare, said Matt Austin, large carnivore specialist with the provincial Environment Ministry.
Authorities have not determined whether the attack was predatory or defensive. Predatory attacks usually occur in remote areas where bears have little contact with people.
In those rare cases, Austin said, “a male bear will actually stalk and attack a person to feed on them as prey. And that’s quite rare.”
But food-conditioned bears, who rummage through garbage bins and raid picnic baskets, are accustomed to the smell of humans and won’t run away.
http://archive.southcoasttoday.com/daily/08-97/08-17-97/a07wn032.htm
Your friend got lucky. I saw a video of a guy in Yosemite trying to get close to a bear while his wife videoed the event. The screaming from the wife was horrible when the bear attacked the man and the final video scene(before she dropped the camera)was of the bear running off with the guy in it's mouth, the guy's arm sticking up and it was plain he was dead. Bears in the wild, whether Black bears or Grizz are not to be messed with. This was a black bear, just FYI.