Bear in London

[manny_santos]

Not every morning I wake up to hear on the radio there's a bear on the loose near Byron.

I think the police handled this bear exactly the right way:

- The bear was spotted in an area close to St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School, Matthews Hall School, CPRI, the Hunt Club, and numerous residential areas;
- Tranquilizing the bear would not have been possible in a timely manner as London Police do not carry tranquilizer, and they would have had to wait for MNR officials in Guelph or Owen Sound to send some down to London;
- 'A' News reported the bear charged at a police officer. The bear was shot as soon as this happened.

Therefore, the police had no choice but to shoot the bear. Even if the bear didn't charge at the officer, they couldn't have afforded to wait for someone to bring bear tranquilizer down to London. The bear could've ventured over to one of the schools, the CPRI grounds, onto the golf course at the Hunt Club, into Springbank Park, or into Oakridge or Byron. It had already been spotted in the River Bend subdivision during the night. Where would we have been if a person was injured or even killed?

Does anyone think this could have been handled any differently, given these circumstances?

I think it's too bad the London Police keep getting a bad rap at every turn when they do the right thing - first the UWO student, and now this.

[ForestryW]

I was working for MNR in Peterborough last summer when a bear came into town. Fortunately Guelph, Owen Sound, and Peterborough all have "bear-techs" who tranquilize bears and bring them to designated "bear drop-off" locations.

Unfortunately London doesn't have an equivalent, so shooting it was the only option.

[sparky212]

what was done was needed to be done and i applaud the police for doing what they did and not waited. It's sad that the bear had to be shot but it was the only rashional thing to do in the situation

[MolsonExport]

I am really quite amazed that London (with its huge geographic footprint extending well into the rural hinterland) does not have tranquilizers for the police force. Let's hope they will acquire such tactics/training, so that in the future, bears can be captured and released instead of shot. I agree, that under the present circumstances, the police had little choice.

[vid]

The police usually "have no choice but to shoot the bear" because they don't know how to respond to the situation, and that's even the case up here. We probably have more MNR staff up here than in all of Southern Ontario but most situations that I can think of involving a nuisance bear end with the bear being shot by police.