A black bear that was shot and killed by RCMP officers after a toddler was attacked at her home in Maple Ridge, B.C., was, in fact, the animal responsible for the mauling, according to the B.C. Conservation Officer Service. The announcement Friday reverses an earlier assessment by the service that found the bear shot by police in the wake of the attack was not the offending animal. The Aug. 9 attack on the three-year-old girl occurred in the backyard of her family’s Metro Vancouver home. The girl’s father reportedly chased the bear away and shot it with a compound bow before the child was airlifted to B.C. Children’s Hospital with injuries to her back, neck and head. Local RCMP officers responded to the area and killed a bear later that day. However, the conservation service said a necropsy determined it was not the bear involved in the attack. The search for the attacking bear continued, with authorities asking the public to avoid the area, until Friday afternoon, when a spokesperson for the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Parks directed media to a video statement posted on the conservation officer service’s Facebook page. “Based on the evidence available to our investigators at the time, we initially concluded that this was not the bear involved in the attack,” Sgt. Jeremy Pauls of the BCCOS said in the video. “Following further investigation, including a reassessment of the evidence, additional evidence gathering and DNA analysis, we can now confirm the bear dispatched was, in fact, the bear responsible for the attack.” Pauls apologized on behalf of the service for the confusion caused by the earlier determination and said no other bears were destroyed during the large-scale search effort. “We’re grateful to the RCMP officers who responded quickly to protect public safety,” he added. “With these findings, the BCCOS is concluding its investigation. As they continue to recover, our thoughts remain with the victim and her family.”
