British tourist questions bear awareness protocols
A British tourist believes hotels in B.C. should hand out bear awareness pamphlets to visitors after she witnessed a woman move up close to a snarling black bear just to snap a photo.
Vacationing Lynne Booth of Bristol was walking on a trail in Whistler Aug. 10 and stopped beside a lake when a girl on a bicycle warned her about a bear close by.
“I heard a loud rustle and a mother bear came charging very fast towards me from only about seven feet away while her cubs remained in the bushes near the water’s edge,” she says.
She later learned from a park employee the bear had made a bluff charge to warn her away. They backed away to give the bear space, but as they did she says a female tourist went straight up to the bear.
“She pointedly ignored our signals of danger and walked up close to the snarling bear and started taken masses of photos with a large camera aimed at its face and under a metre away,” says Booth.
“She was oblivious to the danger and treated the agitated bear as if she was photographing a pet dog that was running around her. Nothing to her was more important than a good close-up photograph of the bear’s face and barred teeth.”
Booth says she felt very angry the woman was so close to an already agitated mother bear. And she hopes her story will serve as a warning to others.
Then just a few days later, Booth read the news about a young girl being attacked on a trail in Port Coquitlam. The 10-year-old girl remains in hospital with critical injuries after she was dragged into the bushes Saturday and mauled by a black bear.
Booth says had the bear she encountered in Whistler attacked the woman, it would have been shot and the cubs orphaned. The incident made her question whether hotels should do more to alert visitors about bears and what to do if there’s a surprise encounter.
She said when they stayed in Yosemite National Park in the U.S. last year, they were issued a list of bear protocols, but received no such warning in Whistler. Tourism Whistler did not respond to a request for information about bear awareness by deadline.
The City of Coquitlam says it hands out a travel and experience guide to all local hotels, which includes information related to wildlife safety and a trail map with messaging about being aware of bears.