You\u2019ve got \u2018be-air\u2019 mail: Curious Metchosin bear delivers laughs at mailbox<\/p>\n
Published 9:00 am Saturday, June 27, 2026<\/p>\n
Anyone in Metchosin wondering where their mail-order salmon may have disappeared to might have to head out on a hike to retrieve it.<\/p>\n
A curious black bear was caught on camera stopping by a community mailbox on Liberty Drive, sniffing around, possibly looking for an easy snack \u2013 or perhaps some long-awaited \u2018be-air\u2019 mail from a distant relative.<\/p>\n
For longtime Metchosin resident Barbara Cina, bear sightings are nothing out of the ordinary. But when she spotted the animal rise onto its back legs to inspect the mailbox, she couldn\u2019t look away.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first I was thinking should I even bother to pull out my camera, because you see bears here every once in a while, it\u2019s nothing that extraordinary,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then all of a sudden, he was kind of just looking at, sniffing at those mailboxes, and then he stood up, and I just started clicking.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was all very brief. I was in the right spot, at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the bear wandered off, Cina continued on her way to work Thursday morning (June 25), briefly pulling over to share the unexpected encounter with her husband, Guido, who posted the photos on social media.<\/p>\n
The jokes soon started pouring in online, says Cina.<\/p>\n
From wisecracks about Canada Post cuts going too far, to quips about missing paychecks, folks found plenty of light relief in the furry wannabe mail-carrier.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey said things like Canada Post is now employing animals because they\u2019re cheaper and they don\u2019t need breaks,\u201d said Cina. \u201cOr \u2018they finally sent my fresh salmon that I ordered\u2019 \u2013 so many funny comments.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the real reason why the bear was so interested in the mailbox, Cina can only speculate.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, the bear is not checking for mail, let\u2019s be honest,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cA bear is driven by a search for food, so maybe it was a smell \u2026 but I have no clue, no clue, it was just funny to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019ve got \u2018be-air\u2019 mail: Curious Metchosin bear delivers laughs at mailbox Published 9:00 am Saturday, June 27, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-767272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767272","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=767272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}