” It’s shocking that some people think this isn’t a serious public safety issue.”

Most visitors to Texada Island, a 30-mile sliver of land off the west coast of British Columbia, choose one of two main methods of arrival: a provincial ferry service with 10 daily sailings or a 3,000ft air strip, which welcomes the occasional chartered plane. But a four-year-old grizzly bear recently took a far more challenging route, braving strong currents and frigid water to swim nearly three miles across the Malaspina Strait. The exhausted young bear, named “Tex” by locals, hauled himself ashore on 25 May, unleashing a fierce dispute between residents, conservation officers and First Nations over his future – and prompting a broader debate over the relationship between the Canadian province and its wildlife.

 A top predator makes it to a small inhabited island? Sounds like the plot of a late Seventies made-forTV creature feature, doesn’t it? And this bruin is already a habituated nuisance animal into the bargain! 

Before his odyssey, the four-year-old bear was known to conservation officers on the mainland, who had twice been forced to relocate him to avoid conflicts with human residents. On both occasions, he returned to urban areas within weeks.Before his swim, he was spotted breaking into fishing boats at marinas to access bait and once stalked two walkers on a trail.

But these are enlightened times, and a massive carnivore roaming within snacking distance of townsfolk no longer brings the response it once would have done.

Despite his somewhat checkered past provincial officials said in a statement that there was a no “kill order” on Tex. But, they added, “if further behaviour by the grizzly bear occurs that threatens public safety, Conservation Officers will respond to those situations … It is our hope that it will not come to this, and the bear will move on independently.

Perhaps if you call rangers because the thing is in your garden eating your dog, they turn up to sing ‘Kimbayah’ until it decides to leave?

“They should euthanize him if they aren’t going to relocate him – he can’t stay here, someone is going to get injured/killed,” wrote one resident on a local Facebook message board. “It’s only a matter of time before something horrible happens.

But the concern from the authorities appears to be all about something horrible not happening to the predator, and no concern for the tax paying residents. And they can always squeeze some minority pandering in at the same time:. 

“Right now this grizzly bear is a ticking timebomb,” John Powell, elected chief of Mamalilikulla First Nation, told the Times Colonist. “I think inevitably the bear is going to run into a human or animal and it’s going to have a negative engagement. Texada is not a big place … It’s going to die there.” In 2019, British Columbia enacted legislation meant to harmonize its laws with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and it has signed a string of treaties or reconciliation agreements with nations in the province. The case of Tex represents a test of that new relationship, says Scapillati, whose foundation has worked with both First Nations and the province.

Utter insanity. Good luck, residents of Texada. You're going to need it! 

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