Residents of Bella Coola on British Columbia’s central coast say they’ve been grappling with a spike in encounters with grizzly bears in the remote community where a bear attacked a group of students and teachers last week.
Resident Corey Van Andel has been living in the valley for four years, and says he noticed a number of house break-ins by bears that wouldn’t have happened in previous years.
He says the bears seem more comfortable coming to people’s homes and he knows two people who have had bear break-ins this year, before the attack that left a teacher and three pupils with serious or critical injuries.
Nuxalk Nation hereditary chief Noel Pootlass says the nation has “lived in harmony” with local bears for generations, but there’s been an influx of “foreign bears” moving into the valley over the past seven years or so due to logging, forest fires, and drought.
He says the valley is ideal bear territory, rich with berries and salmon, and the arriving bears are behaving aggressively to claim territory by charging vehicles, breaking into salmon smoke houses, and making “bear beds” under homes.
Residents may have noticed a recent increase in bear activity in Bella Coola, 700 kilometres northwest of Vancouver, but government statistics suggest overall encounters with grizzlies have recently been stable or slightly down across the province.
Interactions with grizzlies typically peak in B.C. in September and October and statistics for those months have not been released yet this year.
But in 2024, there were a total of 122 calls-outs resulting in 10 bears being destroyed or moved in those two months, while from 2011 to 2023, there were an average of 133 call outs in the same months, resulting in an average of 16 grizzlies being killed or relocated.
Reports for August this year, the most recent data available, show 63 calls. That is also down compared with the August average of 74 from 2011 to 2024.
However, Pootlass says there were multiple fires this year around nearby Anahim Lake, with the habitat loss increasing bear activity in communities like Bella Coola to the south due to habitat loss.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 24, 2025.
Nono Shen, The Canadian Press
