Jennifer Pierce was hiking in a forested area of Whistler, British Columbia, earlier this month when a bear forced her to walk backwards down the paved trail as it followed her from an uncomfortably close distance.
“Before I got my phone out, he came right up to me and sniffed my leg,” Pierce wrote on a Facebook post.
Pierce said it was “3 minutes, 50 seconds of walking backwards yelling for help and asking for Mr. fluffy bear to go away. All I could think was…this is going to hurt. Where is his Mum?”
Eventually the bear wandered off.
“That was too close for comfort,” Pierce says at the end of the video. “Bye bear.”
Local expert Michael Allen, who has studied black bears at Whistler since 1994, stated last year that he has counted a minimum of 48 black bears in Whistler. He said he’s never seen a grizzly bear, though he heard of sightings in Callaghan and Rainbow valleys.
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The Resort Municipality of Whistler offers tips on its website about how to avoid a bear encounter, stating, “Bears and humans love the same habitats. There is a good chance you may encounter a bear in your backyard or on the trails in Whistler. Being aware and prepared can help prevent potentially dangerous situations for humans and bears.”