A sow bear and her two cubs are being monitored by B.C. Conservation officers in Kamloops.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK / City of Kamloops
August 20, 2019 - 2:00 PM
KAMLOOPS - The family of bears that shut down McArthur Island Park yesterday has wandered into a North Shore neighbourhood.
A sow and her two cubs are near the North Thompson River today, Aug. 20, with two conservation officers on-site monitoring them.
“Right now they’re located in a tree on Schubert and Nelson in that vicinity and we’ve kind of barricaded the river trail and stopped the flow of bike traffic and people traffic… we're not closing down any roads,” Kamloops Bylaw Services manager Tammy Blundell says.
McArthur Island Park was closed yesterday on a recommendation from the B.C. Conservation Service, as the mother bear was showing signs of aggression as she protected her two cubs.
Blundell says conservation officers plan to handle the situation without the use of tranquillizers.
"This bear, in particular, isn’t tagged which means it isn’t a nuisance bear, they don’t know about it, so it has never been tranquillized that's why they’re hoping she moves on her own,” Blundell says.
Although B.C. is bear country, Blundell says it’s not very often that the presence of the animals prompts a park closure.
"Once every couple of years it happens. We get bears all over the city, its a matter of if they’re caught and usually it's in the evening when people are in their houses… bears are all over the city and there were no (park) closures yet to date this year."
Blundell says hourly updates will be posted on social media as well as on this city website here.
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