Conservation officers say a grizzly bear has been captured in Bella Coola on British Columbia’s central coast but the search continues for three bears believed to be connected to last week’s attack on a group of students and teachers.
The B.C. Conservation Officer Service says it’s “not conclusive” the bear captured early Monday morning was involved in the attack, so it will be fitted with a GPS collar and relocated.
They say officers compared evidence from the attack scene, 700 kilometres northwest of Vancouver, with evidence analyzed from the captured bear.
The service has previously said a mother grizzly and two cubs are thought to have been involved in Wednesday’s attack that left a teacher and three pupils with severe injuries, and the sow may have been injured.
Insp. Kevin Van Damme with the conservation service says the three bears are still considered a danger to the public.
He says residents need to avoid the 4 Mile area, where the attack took place, and should stay indoors and not go looking for the bears themselves.
“The situation remains fluid as officers work tirelessly to capture and identify any bears involved,” he said.
Residents of Bella Coola say they’ve been grappling with a spike in encounters with grizzly bears in the community.
Resident Corey Van Andel has been living in the valley for four years, and says he noticed a number of house break-ins by bears that wouldn’t have happened in previous years.
He says the bears seem more comfortable coming to people’s homes and he knows two people who have had bear break-ins this year, before the attack that left a teacher and three pupils with serious or critical injuries.
Nuxalk Nation hereditary chief Noel Pootlass says the nation has “lived in harmony” with local bears for generations, but there’s been an influx of “foreign bears” moving into the valley over the past seven years or so due to logging, forest fires, and drought.
He says the valley is ideal bear territory, rich with berries and salmon, and the arriving bears are behaving aggressively to claim territory by charging vehicles, breaking into salmon smoke houses, and making “bear beds” under homes.
Residents may have noticed a recent increase in bear activity in Bella Coola, but government statistics suggest overall encounters with grizzlies have recently been stable or slightly down across the province.
Interactions with grizzlies typically peak in B.C. in September and October and statistics for those months have not been released yet this year.
But in 2024, there were a total of 122 calls-outs resulting in 10 bears being destroyed or moved in those two months, while from 2011 to 2023, there were an average of 133 call outs in the same months, resulting in an average of 16 grizzlies being killed or relocated.
Reports for August this year, the most recent data available, show 63 calls. That is also down compared with the August average of 74 from 2011 to 2024.
However, Pootlass says there were multiple fires this year around nearby Anahim Lake, with the habitat loss increasing bear activity in communities like Bella Coola to the south due to habitat loss.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 24, 2025.
Nono Shen, The Canadian Press
