A young bear was hit and killed by a SkyTrain travelling along the Millennium Line Friday, May 31.
The yearling bear, less than 50 kg and likely in its second summer, is thought to have climbed the high fencing on the north side of the tracks.
A young bear cub. Photo by Philip Warburton.
Conservation officer Nicole Caithness was called to the scene around noon. She was part of a small group — including RCMP officers, Transit police and SkyTrain workers — which shuttled to the site of the collision between Inlet Centre Station and Coquitlam Central Station to pick the bear off the tracks.
“It was already dead when we got there,” said Caithness, describing the scene as gruesome.
“My best guess is it was trying to get to the green spaces on the other side of the tracks near Dewdney Trunk Road,” she added.
While SkyTrain-bear collisions are uncommon, Caithness says she has been receiving a very high call volume of late, with the vast majority of those calls involve bears getting drawn out of the forest by human attractants.
It’s around this time of year when mother bears kick their cubs out to fend for themselves.
“He’d probably just been kicked out by his mother,” said Caithness.
“This bear, unfortunately, was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
