The British Columbia Coroners Service confirmed Tuesday that an elderly woman was killed by a black bear not far from her home near Lillooet late last month.
The victim, 72-year-old Bernice Evelyn Adolph, was a highly respected elder in the Xaxli'p First Nations community, about 170 km west of Kamloops. Her body was found on June 30 by a police dog about 200 metres from her cabin.
Officials said evidence collected at the scene, as well as the autopsy findings, prove that a black bear was responsible for Adolph's death.
Friends and relatives said she complained last week about an aggressive bear trying to get into her home.
Photos taken by CTV British Columbia show what appear to be bite marks on the exterior of the woman's home.
Four black bears were shot and killed by wildlife officials nearby, including one bear they think dragged the victim out of her house. DNA tests are being performed to confirm they got the correct bears.
Conservation officer Rod Olsen told The Canadian Press that the four bears were healthy and showed no signs of being sick or malnourished. He says one of the bears was killed just metres away from where the body was found, while the others were killed within a four-kilometre radius.
Attacks by grizzly bears are more common in British Columbia. Adolph's death is only the third fatal attack by a black bear in the province in more than a decade.
The coroner's report was released the day after a second bear attack was reported in the province. A man is in serious condition in hospital after being mauled by a grizzly bear in northern B.C. on Monday morning.
The attack happened in the Oweekeno area, near Rivers Inlet, about 480 kilometres northwest of Vancouver, along the province's rugged Central Coast.
Johnny Johnson trekked nearly a kilometre to get help, despite suffering from severe cuts to his scalp, puncture wounds to his neck and a broken arm.
"It just blows me away that he walked that far on his own to get help," Rick Yellow Horn, administrator for the Wuikinuxv First Nation to which Johnson belongs, told CP. "For him to be able to walk after those circumstances, it's just a miracle. It's amazing."
According to Yellow Horn, Johnson was picking berries on an old logging trail around 10:30 a.m. when he was attacked.
After he walked to a residence to get help, Johnson had to wait about two hours for an air ambulance to take him to hospital.
Johnson was eventually flown to Victoria General Hospital, where he remains in stable condition in the intensive care unit.
Doug Forsdick, an inspector with B.C.'s Conservation Officer Service, said while a cause for the attack is still unclear, the bear was a sow who had her cubs nearby.
Forsdick told CP that inspectors are travelling to Oweekeno to investigate the incident.
In two recent but unrelated incidents, conservation officers had to kill a bear that wandered too close to Victoria's downtown core, and in Kamloops, Mounties shot a bear that killed two alpacas.
On the other side of the country, wildlife officers in Newfoundland and Labrador are warning people to keep away from bears after one of the animals bit a woman in a car.
The woman was bitten after stopping her vehicle to watch the black bear in the Cache River area, between Churchill Falls and Happy Valley-Goose Bay. The bear got at her through a lowered window.
Officials say people should never stop their vehicles to look at bears or feed wild animals.
With reports from The Canadian Press
