A grizzly bear and her three cubs were behind the attack that killed two women in British Columbia this month, Canadian authorities said.
Jennifer Balcarras, 48, and her daughter Selah Reed, 20, were found dead in Bella Coola earlier this month.
Officials captured and assessed local bears, and determined via DNA testing that the four bears were “all actively involved” in the attack, Inspector Jeff Tyre of the British Columbia Conservation Officer Service told an online briefing Tuesday.
The mother bear was in her teens, while the three cubs had all been born in the past year, Tyre said. He added that the bears were killed to protect the public, because bears involved in fatal attacks on humans “cannot be rehabilitated or relocated.”
“Our investigation also found that this attack likely involve predatory behavior, which I can tell you is very rare,” Tyre said. “That is to say, we don’t know how it started, but we know how it ended.”
Terry Webber, chief administrative officer for the Nuxalk Nation, said the incident was “deeply re-triggering for our community ,” following a separate grizzly attack on a school group in the same area last year.
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