Hzita Brown Mack, a Nuxalk elder, posted on social media that her granddaughter’s life was saved by an education assistant who fought the bear off her so that a colleague could grab her and run to safety with the others.

Samuel Schooner, elected Chief of the Nuxalk Nation, was one of many political leaders calling the teachers and their assistants heroes, noting they were well trained and responded properly in an incredibly tense moment. He said at a press conference in Bella Coola he was grateful “when tasked with making the ultimate decision of life and death, that they chose to lay their lives on the line for the students.”

“These children are going to be around for many, many, many years because of the actions that they have done,” he said.

Inspector Kevin Van Damme of the B.C. Conservation Officer Service told reporters in Vancouver on Friday that the attack was extremely rare, noting in 34 years on the job he has never seen a grizzly maul such a large group of people.

“We are trying to determine the behaviour, and why the bear acted in the way it did.”

Noel Pootlass, the head Nuxalk hereditary chief, was proud of the way his cousin, a teaching assistant at the school, responded. He “took the main onslaught” of the injuries and helped his colleauges fight off the bear.

Mr. Pootlass told The Canadian Press he heard from a parent of one of the children that people were “whacking the bear over the head with what they could use, and the bear eventually ran away, but bear spray didn’t work, and they had to use human force.”

He said his cousin is now being treated for his severe head trauma at a Metro Vancouver hospital, along with the three students badly injured. Mr. Pootlass said before those patients were airlifted from the local hospital he saw one young boy in the emergency room with head injuries and “his face was just covered with scratches.”

There was probably 100 people in the local emergency room at one stage, he said.

“Parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts, and it was a terrifying experience for them,” Mr. Pootlass said.

Insp. Van Damme said conservation officers believe a bear had been previously injured in the community, but it wasn’t clear whether that was the same one that attacked the school group.

He said there are a number of grizzly bears in the area and they co-exist with the community.

“The Nuxalk Nation is well versed with coexisting with grizzly bears,” Insp. Van Damme said.

The Bella Coola Valley is well known for grizzly bear viewing. Ellie Lamb, who has been guiding tourists to view bears in the valley for the past 17 years, said her heart is aching for the Nuxalk community that she knows well.

She said the behaviour of the bear involved in the attack was without precedent, in her experience, and could not have been anticipated.

“There was contact, and not just with one, but with multiple people and that implies to me, as a bear behaviour person, that this bear was extremely stressed.”

>>1459370
>“We are trying to determine the behaviour, and why the bear acted in the way it did.”
It's a fucking bear, what did they expect was going to happen? Winnie the Pooh?

>>1459372
To be fair, most bears would rather just fuck off instead of going after a full group of people. Even if it was aggressive enough to try hunting humans, it isn't worth the trouble.

My guess is either someone/one of the kids provoked it and pissed it off enough to charge the group, or it's sick/injured in a way that made it incredibly aggressive.

>>1459376
Or cubs were involved.

>>1459380
That too. Only reason I didn't mention it is because it almost definitely wouldn't have stopped if they were. There's a reason the phrase "mother bear" is a thing.

>>1459369
The spirit of MAID?

>>1459372
That bear is just as canadian as anybody living in canada, don't be racist.

>>1459369
Is the implication of OP's image that these 10 year olds are dumb whores who deserve to get mauled by a bear because they won't fuck him?