By David F. Rooney
It’s been a bad week for human encounters with predatory wildlife.
On Thursday Angie Threatful and her dog Wrinkles were attacked by a large female coyote. Wrinkles was beat up pretty badly and Angie herself was bitten by the varmint (Click here to read our original story on that incident).
Then on Saturday, what started out as a happy day for Stuart and Diane Andrews as they groomed their beloved pet, Buddy, became one of horror when Buddy raced from their arms to confront a large black bear not 20 metres away from them. The beast seized the brave little dog in its jaws and killed it before making off with his prize and devouring it. (Click here to read that story)
Any way you cut it, it was a dreadful few days for Angie and the Andrews.
But Conservation Officer Adam Christie has some real success to report in the aftermath of those attacks.
After laying traps on the lower slope of Mount Revelstoke below the Andrews home at 600 Highway 23N, he managed to trap the bear that killed Buddy. It was a large 450-lb, male, light-brown-phase black bear, which Stuart identified and Christie dispatched with a bullet on Sunday afternoon. This was the first bear killed here so far this year.
Meanwhile, Christie also managed to trap and kill a female coyote near the Equestrian grounds.
“I set a number of leg-hold traps in area near that road that runs along the Illecillewaet to the old gravel pit,” he said Sunday afternoon. “This morning we caught one female coyote. But she was a small one so I doubt this was the one that Angie described.”
Christie said he killed the animal and has left the traps in place. Signs have been posted throughout the area and people with dogs should not take them down past the Saddle Club.
“We have had a lot of complaints about coyotes and I’d really like to reduce their numbers,” he said.
