On the afternoon of July 30, 2019 a Conservation Officer Service truck arrived in the Coquitlam neighbourhood of Sumpter Drive and Baker Drive. Susan Flint was on her phone when she heard a commotion, someone shouting “Bear! Bear!” and looked out her window to see armed men on her property. Four Conservation Officers had descended on Sumpter Drive carrying shotguns.
A mother bear with her two small cubs was running down their street, evading the men. The COS later stated that the bears were “not co-operating.”
When Tony Faccin went out his door, where his two young sons were playing, he saw four officers “running like crazy with shotguns.” He watched one of the officers trip, and shouted “Don’t shoot, asshole, kids are around.” He walked to the road and started filming the chaos on his street while his wife took their children inside. Soon four RCMP vehicles arrived and a helicopter was circling overhead. At that time Tony stopped filming.
As the Conservation Officers pursued the bears to Baker Drive, Tony was handcuffed and taken to a nearby RCMP car. An officer uncuffed him and asked to see the video he had taken. Tony complied. Another officer grabbed the phone from his hand. Tony now realizes that it was a ploy to get him to unlock his phone. While in the back seat he heard several shots. It was over for the bear family.
Susan began to walk back to her house after Tony’s arrest and was followed by a police officer. He physically grabbed her and demanded her cell phone. She was also handcuffed and put in a waiting RCMP car for 20 to 30 minutes. She had not taken any videos.
A third neighbour was arrested, but has to date not spoken of his experience.
Susan said she felt the bears had no voice, and she didn’t want them shot by “aggressive” Conservation Officers when she followed the officers at a distance, shouting at them “Don’t shoot the bears.” “They were pumped with adrenaline,” she said.
At the sight of armed men on his street where children are out of school on summer vacation and could be anywhere in the neighbourhood, Tony said “The officers were all fired up, ready to hunt bear. With kids around.”
Both Tony and Susan made a point of bringing up the fact that construction on Como Lake Road has resulted in the closing of the area between Mundy Park and the ravine where the bear family was shot. Tony says “That’s where they lived, between the lake and the ravine. Because they couldn’t get across the road they had to use yards.”
As of this writing the Conservation Officer Service is still holding Susan and Tony’s cell phones. “I’m not afraid to show that video,” said Tony. “They may be, but I’m not.” CBC, CTV and Global News have purchased Tony’s video and their lawyers are working to have the cell phones released.
One BC resident who is very familiar with bear behaviour and with the provincial wildlife management model is Jefferson Bray. He has lived in Bella Coola for fifteen years alongside black and grizzly bears, without a single negative incident. He has used common sense on his property, neither romanticizing nor fearing the animals.
He feels the COS should be giving out hefty fines “before bears find our crap lying around,” something he doesn’t see happening in the Bella Coola valley. “Theirs is a reactive, killing model that doesn’t make anyone safer. Quite the contrary they ensure conflict and violence. Yes, get the food cleaned up. For those that don’t, fine them and make them. That’s why they’re an ‘enforcement’ agency, for people behaviour.”
Over-fishing, commercial berry picking, off-road recreation, resource extraction and widespread housing developments have put ever-increasing pressure on BC wildlife. Their behaviour is changing for their own survival, adapting to a confusing and fast changing world is necessary for them. They are doing their part, let’s do ours’ by holding the Conservation Officer Service to their mandate of human wildlife conflicts prevention so their response isn’t most often lethal.
Our relationship with wildlife that interface with urban areas is changing as the public becomes more educated. It’s time for the BCCOS to overhaul the out-dated and unscientific Matrix that they follow regarding bear encounters. The bears, and the public, deserve better.
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