Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jun 06/01) - The black bear shot and killed early Monday morning did not kill Kyle Harry, but GNWT biologists confirmed the one they bagged Tuesday is the culprit.
The Department of Resources, Wildlife, and Economic Development reported Monday that the healthy, "medium-sized" male bear killed that morning was not the same one that attacked the popular Yellowknife teen and his 14-year-old friend Saturday morning.
The second bear was killed at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. Officers located it near the Prosperous Lake boat launch, about one kilometre from the site of the attack. Department spokesperson Judy McLinton said the bear was shot by an officer in a helicopter, and that the bear was limping when it was sighted.
Most importantly, she said, the second bear was suffering from another bullet wound.
The first bear killed by resources officer had not been previously shot. It was downed Monday.
Sgt. Al McCambridge of the RCMP Yellowknife detachment said a "hasty search" by police and an RWED team about two hours after the attack proved fruitless, but another team located Harry's body and a bear three hours later. The bear was struck with a single .233-calibre round fired from an M-16 assault rifle not designed for taking down bears.
The wounded bear fled through dense undergrowth and was not spotted again until Tuesday morning.
According to McCambridge, "the distance (between the shooter and the bear) was such that, without question in his mind ... the shot did hit the bear."
No trail of blood was found at the site of the attack, but resources officer Raymond Bourget says that's not uncommon. "If you don't have an exit wound," chances are there will be little or no blood.
Bourget said that one of the tracking dogs brought to the scene of the attack, "seemed to pick up a scent, then lost it." The bear apparently fled into a thicket of bushes and the scent grew cold.
Late Tuesday McLinton confirmed the bear taken that morning was indeed the animal responsible for the attack. Biologists, police officers and the NWT coroner's office matched a bullet fragment found in the bear to the M-16 rifle used in Saturday's hunt.
The bear's teeth also matched wounds found on Harry's body, McLinton said.
A travel warning for the Ingraham Trail was lifted Tuesday afternoon, but RWED officials are still advising the public to treat the threat of bear attacks seriously.
