Three schoolchildren and a teacher were seriously injured in a grizzly bear attack during a school walk in British Columbia, authorities said Friday, and the community was urged to avoid the area while conservation officers searched for the animal.
The group of about 20 fourth- and fifth-graders had stopped along a wooded river trail in remote Bella Coola at midday on Thursday when the bear emerged from the trees and attacked, Canadian authorities said.
“Multiple teachers physically intervened,” the British Columbia Conservation Officer Service said, using bear spray and a noisemaking bear banger to drive the grizzly away.
The animal remained loose on Friday, the conservation officers said. They were setting up traps and motion-activated cameras.
Grizzly bear attacks are rare but do occur. Conservation groups count two to three fatalities in North America in a typical year. Last month, a British Columbia man succumbed three weeks after an attack near Fort Steele.
The group that was attacked Thursday came from Acwsalcta School, an independent pre-K-12 school operated by the Nuxalk Nation, a First Nations group based in the Bella Coola Valley, about a 12-hour drive from Vancouver, British Columbia. Local media reported that 11 children and adults were injured, four seriously.
Parent Veronica Schooner told the Associated Press that several people tried to stop the attack, but one male teacher “got the whole brunt of it.” The bear ran so close to her 10-year son, Alvarez, that he “even felt its fur,” she said, “but it was going after somebody else.”
Some children were hit with bear spray, she told the AP. Her son was limping and his shoes muddied, she said, but his thoughts were with his classmates.
“He keeps crying for his friends, and oh my goodness, right away he started praying for his friends.”
Nuxalk Nation Chief Samuel Schooner on Friday praised the “heroic actions” of the teachers.
“Knowing that they were tasked with making the ultimate decision of life and death,” he told reporters, “they chose to lay their lives on the line for the students.”
Acwsalcta School canceled classes through Monday and put all outdoor field trips and programming “on hold.” The community youth center was opened 24 hours for counseling services, food and smudging, a cleansing ritual that involves burning sacred herbs.
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