Officials kill 4 grizzlies linked to fatal attack of B.C. mother and daughter | Hanomansing Live

We start here in British Columbia, though, where conservation officers have revealed that they have found and killed the grizzlies responsible for a fatal attack. Four bears were caught over the weekend, a sow and her three cubs. Earlier this month, the bears killed 48-year-old Jennifer Belcaris and her daughter, 20-year-old Sailor Reed. They were on a trail for a walk, not far from their home in Bella Coola. Today we can confirm that forensic testing has determined that four grizzly bears we've captured over the last several days here in Bella Coola were all actively involved in the attack that killed two people. Our investigation also found that this attack likely involved predatory behavior which I can tell you is very rare. That is to say we don't know how it started but we know how it ended. Sarah Galashian joins us now, his low-key demeanor aside. This was a horrific attack, and now we have, for the first time in days, a major development in the story. I mean, there have been attacks in the... Last year, and they were unable to locate the bears. So in this case, what they have is a female grizzly in her teenage years, they say, as well as her three cubs, all approximately within their first year of life. We don't know exactly where they were trapped, but we do know that the fatal attacks that killed Jennifer Belkerris and her daughter, Sailor Reed, they happened on the Snooka Trail, just really minutes from their home. And their remains were found about 150 meters apart from one another. On Friday, we learned that the animals had been... ...captured by conservation officers. And since then, DNA from these animals has been sent to a lab in Edmonton. And what has happened now is it has come back as a match to what is being called, and you heard it off the top there, a very rare predatory attack. Now, not a match, though, to that attack that I just referenced earlier, the one that happened almost a year ago, really, to the day here, November of 2025. That saw 11 people, including children, injured in some cases so badly that they were sent to hospital. It happened also only several kilometers away from where the fatal attack this month occurred. From where Belkerris and Reed's remains were found, and we know that this has made what's happened this month very difficult for the First Nation. They spoke at that press conference. Take a listen. This attack has been deeply re-triggering for our community members as we continue to recover from last year's attack. Our thoughts remain with the victim's family. We still have community supports in place, and they will remain there. Until we feel free, feel the timing is right to remove them. So while the bears that attacked the mother and daughter were still not caught, I believe police were escorting students to and from school. There were patrols at night. Now they have been caught and killed. But we still have the bear responsible for last year's attack at large and other bears in the region. So what precautions are in place? I mean, many other bears in the region. And you have a community that is, I think it's fair to say, on high alert given what has happened here. And so many of the precautions that were put in place do remain. However, there was a recommended curfew in place where everybody was to be inside by 8 p.m. every evening. That has been officially lifted. Night patrols, though, are going to continue for now as well. Well, the Nuxalk Nation. Continuing to provide a shuttle bus service between 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Residents, I think we have a map we can show you of this area, but residents are being asked to report any bear sightings. Since the fatal attacks, there have not been much bear activity on the Snooka Trail where this incident occurred. In Bella Coola, on the First Nations Facebook page, they do note that there has been a bear sighting on 2nd Street as well as one downtown, Bella Coola. All residents are being asked to be vigilant. If you see a bear, report that bear. I mean, this is, as I say, a time of... A lot of bear activity in this area, and there are a lot of grizzly bears. This is really grizzly bear territory, if you will. The First Nation is promising there's going to be ongoing discussion about bear coexistence over the next coming months. Meantime, though, they are still trying to determine what's going to happen with the remains of these four bears. How are they going to potentially be used? And as well, bracing for emotions that I think it's fair to say, based on that press conference, they are getting ready for November 20th will be the anniversary of that not fatal, but very serious grizzly bear attack at school children being involved in that. So November 20th is coming and they are, you know, given what has happened here, this is going to be certainly an occasion that is marked to some degree. Sarah, thank you. Let's get a deeper look now into this deadly bear attack and the response effort to try to prevent future attacks. Let's bring in Lana Cherniello, co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Bear Specialist Groups, Human Bear Conflict Expert Team. Quite a mouthful, but every one of those words relevant to Lana's expertise and what she's about to tell us. Lana, the Conservation Service says this was, quote, a predatory attack. What does that mean? A predatory attack, well, in this case, it would mean that the victims were fed upon and that they were also cached. So bears, they take their kill and then they'll cache it and bury it and sort of lie on top of it or stay near it to protect it from other animals getting it. So that's what that means. But I think what's important is what Jeff Teer said, the conservation officer noted, was that it turned predatory at some point. You know, how the attack actually happened or actually started, we don't know, but we do know that it's a female with three cubs of the year and a predatory attack by a female with three cubs of the year, like to initiate that would be extremely rare. For example, I've been really racking my brain trying to think of one other instance where it was a predatory in that sense, but it turned predatory. So I don't know if the attack last year was predatory, but it's been, as Sarah Galashian, my colleague, was pointing out almost exactly a year ago, that an adult and some children were badly injured by a grizzly in this community, Bella Coola. I think it's no coincidence that these two incidents are happening at this time of year. What do those two attacks tell you about the vulnerability of humans to bears in the Bella Coola region? Yes, it is no coincidence. You're exactly right. In this time of year, the salmon are spawning and Bella Coola is placed in excellent, excellent salmon spawning habitat. So it is basically the bear's grocery store. So you are going to have bears from and from vast distances. We know this in areas that are similar where we've had GPS collars on. They're drawn to that valley from vast instances because they're going to the grocery store to fill up for their long winter sleep. So this time of year in Bella Coola, I think these incidences are telling us that we're going to need to really start being a bit more vigilant and up the bear smart game. Yeah, I mean, this is not a case of naive hikers going deep into the woods and they ought to know better. These are things that are happening in a community with schools and with, you know, children and people going about their their day to day business. I mean, what what what do place? Well, in particular, what does Bella Coola need to do to reduce the danger to humans? Yes, excellent question. I think that we need to start looking at some alternative management for Bella Coola. And that may be things like taking those trails, even those ones that are close to home, and looking at the lines of sight on them. So how brushed in are they? How much can we see? How much can a bear see coming the other way? What we want to do is avoid any surprise encounters. So we might want to go in and take those trails and brush them right out, open them up, open up those lines of sight. Bear spray, an excellent tool. I'm not sure about the bear spray and whether these victims were carrying that or not, but everybody should be carrying bear spray and everybody should know how to use it. Dogs should all be on a leash at this time of year for sure. Most of the times you're hiking in bear country, your dog should be on a leash, but definitely at this time of year, so they don't bring a bear back to you. So we do know that we got a lot of bears in there, and so now we got to really up all these coexistence mitigation techniques that we have. This is a pretty controversial thing I'm about to bring up, and me just asking the question is going to lead to angry emails. But there are people who say that grizzly bears should be called, which is a polite way of saying killed, hunted. How do you feel about that? How do I feel about the grizzly bear hunt? Well, I think it's two different questions on what is the scientific answer and what I feel about the hunt. Those are two completely different things. Scientifically, if the populations are stable enough to have a hunt, then technically we should be able to have a hunt. If they're not, then the populations are closed. So where the populations were really struggling in BC and southwest BC, those populations have been closed to hunting since the 1970s. We're starting to see some of that effect now with bears expanding out in areas where the population is good. It can sustain a hunt, so that's how it is. But the question here is, does hunting reduce human-bear conflicts? That's a different question, okay? Now, in that realm, we don't have proof that that's actually true, scientifically. You would have to reduce the number of bears to so low to actually see the effect that it would have on human-bear conflicts. Those aren't necessarily the same animals that we're taking out. So human-bear conflict, it's... It has many drivers, but hunting is not one of them that we know about, okay? We can reduce attractants. We can look at our natural attractants around us. We know that food availability, so what's happening with the natural foods, is tied to human-bear conflicts. When foods fail, conflicts go up. as do injurious encounters. When foods are good, bears tend to stay in the backcountry. So when we're talking about human-bear conflicts, that's a different question in the hunting game. Does that make sense? Makes absolute sense. And I really appreciate how clearly you made that point. Lana Cherniello is a conservation scientist and expert on human-bear conflict. Thanks for speaking with us. Thank you for having me.