Remember When a Group of Canadians Were Defying the Government by Trying to Relocate a Grizzly Bear? Well, Now He’s Dead.

The story of Tex the bear made headlines back in the beginning of June when a group of local residents on British Columbia’s Texada Island banded together to try and relocate the bear on their own. Citing their own experience with bear handling (somebody’s brother’s uncle was in the circus or something), the residents were planning to defy the Provincial government by relocating the massive bear themselves. 

The grassroots movement quickly got rolling and was aiming to raise upwards of $30,000, you know, for airlifting the bear and everything. But in the end, reports indicated that the local residents decided they’d be better suited to hand off the project to the area’s First Nations. 

While the BC Conservation Officer Service clapped back at the original relocation plan, version 2.0 featuring a few self-governing First Nations groups did end up garnering some government support. A trio of groups which included the shíshálh and Tla'amin nations, and the Homalco First Nation, crafted a plan of relocation that seemed to make sense on the surface. According to shíshálh Nation's acting manager of lands and resources, Erik Blaney, he and the group proposed moving the grizzly about 100 km (62 miles) north to a small region known as Bute Inlet. With an already small, established group of grizzly bears in the area, Blaney and others believed the presence of other bears and a flourishing salmon run would keep Tex in place and away from human contact.

On the surface, the newly-hatched plan seemed like a good one - if nothing else, a far better solution than what was originally planned by local residents. As the plan was proposed to the province in mid-June, Blaney said the government shot it down, stating that what they were trying to do was outside of current policy and if completed, would lead to charges under the province’s Wildlife Act.

Then suddenly, and secretly, the provincial government allegedly changed their mind. 

"We had a meeting with the local nation there, the Homalco Nation, in partnership with the shíshálh Nation as well, who came up with a really robust, clear plan about how they wanted to translocate it in partnership with the Grizzly Bear Foundation," said Randene Neill, the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship on a podcast appearance. "After talking to all of our specialists and our team, we agreed to try this translocation."

With a thumbs up towards the end of June, Blaney and provincial officials worked under hush-hush conditions in an attempt to get the traps in place for the local bear. With Facebook groups and locals posting up Tex’s location every time he stepped out of the woods, organizers were worried that all of the attention would hinder their relocation efforts.

And they weren’t wrong.

Just as they were set to deploy traps this week in an area believed to hold the large bear, reports surfaced on Monday that the body of Tex the grizzly bear was found in the Van Anda region, not far from where it was originally spotted in Shehtekwahn bay. 

"We had six staff ready for deployment and the plan in place, helicopter on standby," Blaney said.

Provincial officials landed on the island on Tuesday to begin their investigation and believe that the bear had been shot by a local resident. Given the fact that Tex already had two strikes against him on BC’s mainland, it seems as though he got handed his third strike at some point over last weekend. As the community reels about the loss of the bear, BC’s Conservation Officer Service is expected to perform a full necropsy to close in on the exact cause of death to help further the investigation into the bear’s killing.