The apparent mystery animal attacks continue. Or, at least, that’s the way early media reports would have you thinking. In this case, the offending animal remains at large, and thus far, the cause of the death is only based on a nearby sighting of a bear. Something seems a little off about this in the land of the Windigo.
Quebec conservation officers are on the hunt for a bear that killed a 70-year-old woman.
Provincial police say the victim’s husband went looking for her Friday evening when she didn’t return from a solo trip to a fishing hole at a camping area near La Sarre, about 600 kilometres northwest of Ottawa.
Police spokesman Gregory Gomez del Prado says the man, also around 70 years old, found his wife’s body and spotted a bear nearby.
Mr. Gomez del Prado said the man called police, but when officers ran into the bear it seemed very aggressive. He said it was also too dark for police to locate the body.
Police found the woman’s body Saturday when they returned to the area with conservation officers.
Mr. Gomez del Prado said wildlife officials have set traps in the wooded area to catch the bear.
“Black bear attacks and kills grandmother, 70, on fishing trip” by Kate Hammer
From Monday’s Globe and Mail
June 2, 2008 at 3:53 AM EDT
The husband of a 70-year-old grandmother who was killed by a bear in northern Quebec fearlessly chased the wild animal off his wife’s battered body, according to family members.
Conservation experts set traps after Friday evening’s attack, but according to police, as of last night, the bear was still at large in the wilds of northern Quebec.
Cecile Lavoie and Alexandre Lavoie, 73, were in remote country nearly 600 kilometres northwest of Ottawa, where the retirees often spent the weekend fishing or hunting deer.
According to her daughter, Ms. Lavoie felt at home in the woods and on the banks of the Theo River, where the bear attacked.
As she scouted a fishing hole for walleye, Ms. Lavoie became separated from her husband. Barely 10 minutes later, Mr. Lavoie felt something was amiss and went searching for his wife of 51 years. Metres away he came upon the nightmarish scene of her body being dragged into the forest by a bear.
Mr. Lavoie chased the predator for nearly 200 metres and managed very briefly to scare it away from his wife. He tried but was unable to carry her limp and bleeding body back through the dense spring foliage.
He left her and went for help. When he arrived with police, the bear had returned and was combative.
“The bear was still around and the bear was aggressive,” said Sergeant Gregory Gomez del Prado, a spokesman for the Quebec provincial police. “It was dark so it was hard to find the woman’s body.”
The bear was so aggressive, police were forced to delay attempts to retrieve Ms. Lavoie’s remains until early Saturday morning, after it retreated into the deep woods north of the small community of La Sarre.
Yesterday Ms. Lavoie’s family gathered at her Beaucanton home. Mr. Lavoie, the retired owner of a logging machinery business his wife helped him build, is still in shock according to his daughter, Christine Lavoie.
“She was an angel,” Christine said yesterday in a telephone interview. “Fishing and hunting were her favourite activities, she was in her paradise.”
According to the Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources and Fauna website, black bears are the species most commonly found in Quebec. This species rarely attacks humans and only four people have been killed by black bears in that province over the past 25 years.
In 1991, a black bear killed a Toronto couple in Algonquin Park, baffling wildlife experts as it left the campers’ food stores untouched.
In 2001, a high-school student was attacked and partly eaten by a black bear 25 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife.
In 2007, a Calgary woman, who was cycling on a trail near a British Columbia resort, was stalked and killed by a black bear.
Attacks sometimes occur in the spring when bears awake from hibernation and are hungry. According to wildlife experts, a long winter and large amounts of snow meant this year’s hibernation season stretched a few weeks longer than usual.
In the event that one is approached by a black bear, the ministry website recommends moving slowly and avoiding eye contact in order to evade being identified as prey by the bear. Climbing a tree can be an effective way to escape attack.
According to her family, the attack on Ms. Lavoie happened so quickly she didn’t even have time to scream, let alone reach for the bear spray she carried with her. As accomplished hunters and campers who were born and raised in northern Canada, the Lavoies were well-versed in the recommended tools for avoiding and dealing with bear attacks.
It remains unclear why the bear attacked Ms. Lavoie.
In addition to her husband, she leaves behind five children and 11 grandchildren.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
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