A necropsy will now take place on the frozen carcass of the bear that attacked a 10-year-old girl Saturday — revealing whether it had eaten human garbage.
If human food is found in the bruin's digestive system, that could suggest someone who put two bags of garbage next to a trash bin on the trail is responsible for creating some of the conditions that kept the bears nearby.
The garbage, which contained coffee cups, an apple and McDonald's containers — and was still in the area when The Tri-City News visited the site Monday morning — may have been one of the reasons the sow and her cub were in the area.
Insp. Murray Smith of the BC Conservation Officer Service is not ready to assign blame for the incident, which he said was a rare and unfortunate occurrence and more likely the result of bad luck, but he said people should know better than to leave garbage in a known bear area.
People who think "the municipality will pick it up and take it away with the rest of the garbage, [such] unscrupulous human behaviour has caused a lot of bears to scavenge human food in the area," Smith said.
He said records going back four months show the sow and cub had not been the subject of any conflict complaints.
Nevertheless, he said conservation officers will continue to crack down on garbage offenders and lay fines, and will work with the cities of Coquitlam and PoCo to make sure scofflaws feel the full force of the law.
"If people aren't co-operating, we need a little more stiffer response," he said.
As for whether the city of Coquitlam should bear any responsibility for the trash next to the bin, Smith said it shouldn't; in fact, he complimented the city for its network of bear-resistant bins along trails and in city parks.
"The city of Coquitlam has a really good garbage system for that whole trail area. It's got good garbage cans, they're, large, heavy, cement and they're locked down."
Meanwhile, the city says it will continue to monitor garbage bins along the trails and clean up trash.
Kathleen Reinheimer, city parks manager, said trash left outside the garbage can near the location of the bear attack, was cleaned up by noon Monday.
Reinheimer also said the city will be looking into whether more measures need to be taken to inform people about safe hiking on trails during bear season.
