Teachers who were well prepared and well equipped may have ended a grizzly bear attack on their group of Canadian schoolchildren in British Columbia this week before it became deadly, authorities said.
Two people were critically injured, two were seriously injured, and seven others were treated at the scene Thursday afternoon in the small community of Bella Coola, BC Emergency Health Services said in a statement.
On Saturday, the BC Conservation Officer Service said the search for the bear expanded to include two additional grizzlies witnesses said were nearby during the incident.
At a news conference Friday, Tamara Davidson, minister of environment and parks in the Canadian province, said that three children and one adult were seriously injured and remained hospitalized. Their relatives did not want to release the patients’ latest conditions, she said.
“I want to recognize the teachers who took great risk to protect their students,” Davidson said. “Their actions deserve our greatest respect and gratitude. They were well prepared, and they are the true heroes.”
Inspector Kevin Van Damme of the Conservation Officer Service said the teachers used bear spray and small noisemakers called bear bangers to repel the animal.
“During a school outing, the group had stopped along a trail near the community where a single grizzly bear emerged from the forest and attacked,” he said. “Teachers put themselves in harm’s way to protect the children. They definitely avoided worse injuries.”
Authorities were collecting evidence from the attack site to help identify and capture the bear, Van Damme said. In the meantime, residents and visitors in the area, known for outdoor activities, were told to stay indoors.
“I really need to stress how dangerous this situation is with this bear at large,” Van Damme said, adding later during the news conference: “I have not seen an attack like this — with a large group of people.”
He added that an incident involving more than a dozen people is “extremely rare.”
The Nuxalk Nation of Indigenous people in the region asked everyone in the area to “avoid all trails.”
Residents of the 4 Mile area in Bella Coola were told to remain indoors on Saturday, and potential visitors were advised to stay away. Additional conservation officers joined the search alongside a Royal Canadian Mounted Police helicopter crew with heat imaging technology, the Conservation Officer Service said in a statement on Saturday.
The board and administration of Acwsalcta School, an independent institution run by the Nuxalk Nation in Bella Coola, said in a statement that school would remain closed Monday and that counseling would be available.
Parent Veronica Schooner told The Associated Press that, among the many who tried to halt the attack, one teacher “got the whole brunt of it” and was transported to a hospital.
Schooner said her 10-year-old son Alvarez was in the class of fourth and fifth graders attacked by the bear and was close enough that “he even felt its fur.”
“He said that bear ran so close to him, but it was going after somebody else,” Schooner said.
She added that some children were hit with the bear spray.
The British Columbia Assembly of First Nations, an umbrella organization for the 204 First Nations of Indigenous people in the province, said the attack should inspire reconsideration of measures to prevent such incidents.
“This event raises important questions about safety protocols, community preparedness and the respect for First Nations’ knowledge in managing wildlife,” the organization said in a statement that also expressed solidarity with the Nuxalk Nation.
The B.C. Wildlife Federation, a nonprofit that works toward environmental preservation, said Friday that a 2017 province ban on hunting grizzlies correlates to a rise in such attacks because the bears, plentiful in Bella Coola, have been freer to learn behavior dangerous to humans.
Since the prohibition started, the federation said in a statement Friday, the number of bear reports to the British Columbia Conservation Officer Service has doubled.
“With no hunting pressure, grizzlies and humans will increasingly occupy the same spaces with inevitable consequences,” BC Wildlife Federation Executive Director Jesse Zeman said.
While the federation expressed hope the incident would lead to reconsideration of the hunting ban, Davidson, the province’s parks minister, said it was too soon.
“This is an ongoing live situation where the bear is still at large and the community doesn’t feel safe,” she said. “No considerations just yet.”
At the same time, Davidson said, her ministry hopes the families of those attacked experience “healing and comfort in the coming days.”