A Prince George woman who lives next to the Hudson’s Bay Wetland Nature Park is upset that two black bears were shot and killed near her house Thursday afternoon by a conservation officer.
Penny Hedrick said neither bear had been displaying aggressive behaviour and wonders why the officer chose to shoot them rather trap and relocate them to a rural area.
Hedrick took photos of one of the bears 15 minutes before it was killed, at about 5:30 p.m. Thursday, and said it was simply walking across her yard.
“I told the game warden it wasn’t aggressive, and he still went and shot it,” said Hedrick. “There was another one hanging out across the water, and I’ve got pictures of it. It wasn’t aggressive, it had been there for a week and he shot that one too."
Hedrick said the conservation officer told her he was responding to a complaint about an aggressive bear in the area. She said a man in his 20s had told her that two nights earlier he was surprised by a bear as he walked out of his house in the dark and had chased it into the woods, and he was laughing about it.
“The next day he was telling a completely different story, telling (the officer) that those are the ones who were aggressive to him,” said Hedrick. “If you’re walking into them and they walk away from you and you think that’s being aggressive, I don’t get that..”
She said a third bear was shot in the same area two weeks ago.
“They could have just shot them with a dart to knock them out, put them in cages and hauled them out to Pine Pass,” she said. “They’re chased into town because of the fires and everything and they just don’t care. They’re telling people on the news what to do, why can’t they do that and leave them alone and not be shooting them.”
