Bear likely responsible for deaths of sheep

More than a dozen sheep have been killed in Metchosin in recent weeks by what is believed to be a single problem black bear.

And some say efforts to track it are being hampered by residents who are urging others not to report bear sightings. The bear has killed 16 to 20 sheep over the past six weeks, says Tom Henry of Stillmeadow Farm, who discovered a disembowelled ewe on Saturday morning.

Henry said he was doing his chores when he noticed the flock was nervous.

“They flock really closely together when they are afraid and they were just as tight as you could believe. So I went roaming around and I found the ewe fairly recently disembowelled and dead as a doornail.”

It was the first sheep Stillmeadow has lost to a bear this year, Henry said, but he knows of a Metchosin farm that has lost 10. The kill matched the bear’s usual technique, he said.

“He’s got a taste for ewe, which is mature female, as opposed to lamb, and what makes him so damn difficult to trap or even locate to shoot is because he’s killing, eating and then not coming back to the kill, which is really unusual,” said Henry.

He said he could tell the predator was a bear, not a cougar, because a cougar opens up its prey more delicately and attempts to cover the kill when finished, while a bear opens the animal wide and leaves it uncovered.

John Buchanan of Parry Bay Sheep Farm, who keeps sheep in fields throughout Metchosin, said he’s lost at least six and perhaps more than 15 sheep to bear attacks in recent weeks.

B.C. Conservation Service Sgt. Scott Norris said conservation officers have set several traps, with no luck.