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[at-l] Bear attack in northern BC

Hello all:
This is a bit of a follow-up on posts I sent a few weeks ago on how to deal
with bears. I was contacted by a number of people off-list, most of whom
assumed that the only problem would be with grizzly bears. Blacks are not
dangerous, they seemed to be saying. Warning: This has to do with bears,
not with the AT, but I hope some of you will be interested.
Cordially,
R J Hayes
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This is from our local paper today (and I'm very familiar with the area - I
named my company after it - see address):

Head: Black bear attack kills two in B.C. park
Attr: Calgary Herald and The Canadian Press
Place: Liard River, B.C.

        A Texas woman on her way to a new life in Alaska was mauled to
death by a black bear in a remote northern B.C. park as her two children
watched helplessly.
        A man who tried to save her also died.
        Hikers who witnessed the attack on a trail in Liard River Hot
Springs Provincial Park, a popular park on the Alaska Highway just south of
the B.C./Yukon border Thursday night, threw rocks and sticks at the
aggressive bear but could not stop it from mauling four people, said staff
at a nearby lodge.
        The black bear was shot and killed by a tourist who had rushed to
get a gun.
        Pam McConnell, 38, of Paris, Tex., and her two children Kelly, 13,
and Kristen, 7, were walking along a dense trail between two hot springs
when they encountered the bear, the woman's mother said Friday.
        A 20-year-old Calgary man and Kelly McConnell were also mauled by
the bear. Kelly was flown to hospital in Vancouver, where he is not
suffering life-threatening injuries. Kristen McConnell was unscathed.
        Officials say the 57-year-old Fort Nelson man may have died while
interceding in the attack. Police have not released the man's name, but he
is believed to have been an experienced outdoorsman and hunter.
        "Apparently the woman was trying to protect her children," said
Anthony Danks, an official with the B.C. Environment, Lands and Parks
Ministry.
        Naturalist-author Lynn Hancock and her manager, Frank Hedingham,
were in the park at the time of the attack. Hancock told reporters that she
and Hedingham answered creis for help and found Patti McConnell and her son
on a section of the boardwalk, bleeding, and the mutilated corpse of the
Fort Nelson man nearby.
        Hedingham attempted to drive the bear off, using a long piece of
ballen tree while Hancock ran back to the hot springs bath house for towels
to stanch the wounds of the victims.
        But Hedingham could not force the bear to retreat until it charged
and he kicked it in the face.
        The bear hopped off the boardwalk and charged in the direction of
four students, including the Calgary man. He climbed back onto the
boardwalk, running into the student and biting him in the thigh.
        The man - whose name has been withheld at his request - suffered
deep cuts and puncture wounds to one leg.
        It is believed he was with a group of students from the University
of British Columbia who were camping and doing field work in the area.
        The attack victims were brought out of the bush on stretchers
around 6 p.m. Thursday aboard all-terrain vehicles to Trapper John's Lodge
in Liard Hot Springs. The Calgary man lay in the lobby of the lodge until
he was taken to hospital in Fort Nelson along with the 13-year-old son of
the Texas woman.
        Trisha Pope, an employee at the lodge, choked back tears as she
recounted her attempts to console the dead woman's seven-year-old daughter.
"She had just lost her mother."
        She said the Calgary man was given cardio-pulmonary resuscitation
by a staff member from the lodge. "He was surrounded by his friends, he was
conscious but wasn't talking. He was pretty badly injured."
        He was airlifted to Calgary late Friday afternoon from Fort Nelson,
B.C., about 200 km southwest of the site of the accident.
        Jan Reed said from her homw in Paris that her daughter was planning
on settling in Anchorage and had taken her children on a meandering route
through the U.S. and Canada. She said Patti was a good Christian who wanted
her children to experience the delight she had experienced when she lived
there several years earlier. "They were going up there to make a new life
for themselves."
        The park was evacuated soon after and will remain closed while
provincial officals and the RCMP investigate. Provincial officials said it
was the first fatal bear attack in british Columbia this year. Six people
were injured and one person killed by bears in the province last year,
while there were 11 injuries and two deaths in 1995.


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