Grizzlies in the Backyard

Margaret Munro

One of the first things Steven Hodgson noticed was Jordan Carbery’s slippers lying side-by-side on the path, as if he’d just stepped out of them. Then he spotted a bloody chunk of his scalp, and half his right ear. Mr. Hodgson, a provincial conservation officer whose duties include dealing with problem animals, was at the scene of a harrowing grizzly bear attack that took place just steps from the front door of Mr. Carbery’s home. In the past, the mauling would have meant an automatic death sentence for the sow and her cubs. But in the Bella Coola Valley on Canada’s west coast, where precipitous mountains plunge down to its namesake salmon river and where people have cleared land in the rain forest to grow lush gardens, the lines that for centuries have divided two apex predators — bears and humans — have blurred. Mr. Hodgson, who arrived within an hour of the attack, came with an open mind and took in the scene: the scuff marks where the grizzly dug her enormous paws into the ground as she accelerated; the blood splatters around the body parts; the camera lying in the dirt where it fell. Mr. Carbery, a park ranger, had stepped outside his home at sunrise last July 3 to take photos of bears foraging in a cherry tree. Then he spotted their mother charging him, the fur on the hump on her shoulders bristling in alarm, and he made his second mistake of the day. He ran. She had him in a moment. The bear toppled him by raking her claws across the back of his legs. She grabbed his skull in her jaws, lifting and dropping him. He kicked at her head, punched her and somehow scrambled into the house. After inspecting the attack scene that day Mr. Hodgson and his colleagues at the British Columbia Conservation Officer Service decided not to kill the bears. They would be allowed to continue wandering through the rural community. Instead they issued an order to Mr. Carbery’s landlord to harvest the cherries, which had drawn the grizzlies to the overgrown property...MORE