A Kitimat resident had a scare earlier this week when a bear broke into her house and climbed into her attic.
Makayla Robinson, who lives on Haisla Ave. in Kitamaat Village, said the bear had been scouting back and forth between her house and her grandmother’s house next door for a couple of weeks. On Wednesday (Nov. 4) evening, however, she said he found her back porch and saw some shelves of food in her house.
“I usually leave the door cracked for my cats to get in. He yanked my sliding door open and shoves himself inside. He then made himself comfortable on top of my deep freeze, eating my fruit and vegetables,” Robinson said. “My boyfriend Tony thought it may have been our cat on the back porch, [because] he wasn’t very loud at all. So he went to check in. There was the bear instead.”
Robinson said they tried everything they could think of to get the bear to leave, including using an air horn, but nothing phased him. He wasn’t aggressive, she added, he just seemed very interested in the food.
However, when her cousin came to try to scare the bear away, it went up into her attic instead, which she said gives access to almost every room in her house.
Robinson said she call the police at this point, but said they didn’t seem to believe her at first.
“I don’t blame them,” she said, laughing. “[Dispatch] sent cops over, who got in contact with Conservation in Terrace. They later told me they thought I was exaggerating. I don’t blame them one bit. Who gets a bear in their attic?”
Terrace Conservation Officer Services (COS) Sgt. Tracy Walbauer said they immobilized the bear when they got there and were able to pull it out of the attic and Robinson’s house.
He said that the bear was was a two-year-old male and had obvious injuries to its front paws, but they weren’t sure what from. Walbauer added that the bear was starving and clearly hadn’t been able to find enough food for this year. It was euthanized so it wouldn’t go into any more houses, Walbauer confirmed.
“We’re not used to getting calls like that,” Walbauer said. “When something like that happens, it’s not normal, you know something’s obviously not right [with the bear].”
Robinson said that there weren’t any damages to the house, but most of their food was gone or uneatable after that.
Thankfully, Robinson said everyone is safe, and while she and others are upset the bear had to be put down, both Robinson and Terrace COS said she did the right thing.
“I wasn’t out to get any animal hurt. But I was horrified. Obviously. And didn’t want to be attacked or have my son killed by a wild animal in my house,” Robinson said. “Did what I could with what knowledge I have about getting bears out of my house.”
READ MORE: ‘Bears that test the limits’: Kitimat sees higher number of bears than average year
READ MORE: Conflicts between humans and bears increase drastically in north coast B.C.
clare.rayment@northernsentinel.comLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
