Face to face with a bear

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This article was published 30/08/2021 (1642 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Not too many people can say they had a face to face encounter with a black bear and weren’t injured, but Diane Fillion can.

Fillion, who lives near Lac du Bonnet, said her bearly apart encounter happened Saturday when she was walking with her dog in her yard. She walked around the corner and spotted a mother bear and two of her three cubs.

"It caught me by surprise," she said Monday.

"My dog and I were walking through our yard and we turned the corner and she was there. It was a little bit frightening to say the least."

Fillion said what she recalled about the encounter was actually different than what happened.

"I thought that I tripped and then the bear was on top of me but, as it turned out, that’s not what happened."

Fillion’s home security video shows her running towards her house, but stopping and turning back towards her dog. The dog comes running full tilt past her, with the mother bear in hot pursuit. The bear suddenly veers off and bowls into Fillion full tilt, causing the woman to fall backwards to the ground with the animal on top of her, its face looking straight down at her.

"I don’t recall hearing any noise or it opening its mouth," she said. "But we were face to face on the ground.

"I’ve seen bears here before, but not face to face."

Fillion used a stick to strike the bear and the animal immediately fled in the other direction, towards its cubs. The mother bear and her three cubs went up in a tree for a couple hours before coming down and taking off.

"Conservation came out here and I said I didn’t want anything to happen to the bear — she was simply protecting her babies," she said.

Fillion posted the video on Facebook, something she said she did as an information measure.

"I wanted to let people know mother bears and cubs are here so we should be aware," she said.

Meanwhile, another bear encounter occurred at Hecla-Grindstone Provincial Park last week. A cottager posted photos on Facebook of the damage a bear did inside her vehicle.

"He got my back passenger door open, got into my car, and the door closed behind him," the woman said in a post.

 

Bear safety 101: Why you shouldn’t leave food in your car. Someone near our place had a bear break in the back of their car. They later heard their alarm go off and came out to investigate. Opened the door and the bear ran out. Left them with quite the mess. pic.twitter.com/yiHE3JmuFL

— Zach Fleisher�� (@Zach_Fleisher) August 30, 2021

 

She said conservation officers told her and her husband that while she had no garbage in the car to attract the bear, they believed the scent of french fries and wings the couple picked up in Riverton the day before was likely still in the car.

MPI spokesman Brian Smiley said the damage will be covered by insurance "provided the vehicle has a valid Autopac policy.

"The registered owner can open a claim. The registered owner will be responsible for paying their deductible."

Smiley said the claim would have no impact on the owner’s driver safety rating because no demerits would be registered.

"While not a common claim, there have been similar incidents over the years."

Smiley said there are about 110 vehicle and bear incidents yearly in Manitoba. A collision deducible is waived if the insurance holder has a $200 deductible.

Pauline Bloom, a wildlife biologist with the province’s agriculture and resource development department, said bears are extremely active this time of year as they look for food before they hibernate.

Bloom said this year — possibly because of the drought and the shortage of food — they are going further afield.

"Bears are always hungry, but now they are intensely food focused to get fat on them," she said. "A small town like Teulon or Balmoral might see a bear once or twice a year, but they have seen more this year."

Bloom said whether you come upon a bear looking for food in a garbage bin, on a woodland trail, in your backyard, or rummaging through your vehicle, the advice remains the same.

"When you see a bear stop, be calm. It is hard to do, but you want to be calm and figure out what that bear is doing. If it doesn’t know you’re there just slowly leave the area. If it knows you are there, you can talk to it in a low voice, wave your hands and arms above you slowly in the air, and keep backing away. Avoid direct eye contact. Keep your backpack on."

Bloom said if you get between a mother bear and her cub, slowly go backwards away from both, even if you have to leave a woodland trail and back into the woods.

She said the chance of a fatal encounter with a bear is rare. In 71 fatal cases across North America between 1900 and 2017, only three Manitobans have died.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca