Grizzly bear conflict continues to worsen: BCWF<\/p>\n
Published 10:56 am Friday, November 21, 2025<\/p>\n
The B.C. Wildlife Federation says human-bear conflict continues to worsen following the provincial government decision to end the grizzly bear hunt, citing recent incidents in B.C. and Alberta<\/p>\n
Near Cranbrook, local resident Joe Pendry died from injuries sustained after fighting off a grizzly bear while elk hunting in October. In Alberta, a man hiking near Cochrane survived his injuries after being mauled by a grizzly bear a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
On Nov. 20, a group of school children and a teacher were attacked by a grizzly bear near Bella Coola, with 11 people suffering injuries.<\/p>\n
Since the grizzly hunt ended in B.C. in 2017, grizzly-human conflicts have risen dramatically, according to the BC Wildlife Federation.<\/p>\n
In the 10 years preceding the ban, calls to the Conservation Officer Service concerning grizzly conflicts ranged from 300-500 a year, peaking between April and November.<\/p>\n
Since the ban, calls about grizzly bears doubled to nearly 1,000 a year.<\/p>\n
The grizzly hunt ended in B.C. largely due to popular opinion, with no scientific rationale, according to the BC Wildlife Federation, which called the decision \u201ca shortsighted move.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith no hunting pressure, grizzlies and humans will increasingly occupy the same spaces with inevitable consequences,\u201d said Jesse Zeman, executive director of the B.C. Wildlife Federation.<\/p>\n
Alberta has prohibited hunting grizzly bears since 2006. But the province is eyeing changes in order to reduce human-bear conflict, which could potentially include lifting the ban.<\/p>\n
The BC Wildlife Federation says its members in Creston no longer feel safe walking outside due to the rising number of grizzly bear encounters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the hunt was closed we predicted that over time human-grizzly conflicts would increase, but we also know that bears that learn bad behaviours teach those same behaviours to their offspring,\u201d said Zeman. \u201cThis will keep getting worse until science-based wildlife management is reinstated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grizzly bear conflict continues to worsen: BCWF Published 10:56 am Friday, November 21, 2025 The B.C. Wildlife Federation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-300472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}