By Matt Fetinko

Bear kills dog at Forests for the World

Jun 13, 2020 | 1:50 PM

PRINCE GEORGE — At approximately 10am on Friday, June 12, a man was walking with his dog at Forests for the World and let it off its leash. All it took was that brief moment, about 100 metres from the Cranbrook Hill lookout, for the dog to find a black bear in the woods and go after it. The bear, in turn, went after the dog and killed it.

“We want to focus on what people can do to minimize these kinds of incidents because it is the wilderness, they are wild animals, there is not really any way to predict how they are going act, it’s just a matter of how can we minimize those interactions with them,” explained Eamon McArthur, a local Conservation Officer, moving onto ways to go about that. “One of the biggest ones is to travel in groups. Make noise, animals need to know you’re out there. Keeping dogs on leashes is always good because commonly dogs will run back to where they feel safe and that would be [the pet owner’s] position.”

McArthur clarified the bear showed no aggression toward any people in this incident. The bear focused solely on the pet. He said, “Theses animals tend to see pets as a food source at times. At this point, we’re just trying to advise the public to be cautious and report bear sightings and bear behaviour, especially adverse bear behaviour.”

There have been no further sightings of the bear.