RCMP warn Newfoundland residents after polar bear climbs on woman's roof

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -

If it weren't for her neighbour's home security camera, Bobbi Stevens would have had no idea the polar bear she saw Sunday evening had just come down from her roof.

The 78-year-old St. Anthony, N.L., resident said she was more excited than scared after she opened her front door to find the bear almost close enough to touch. But when she saw video footage of the animal on her roof just before she opened the door, Stevens said she realized just what could have happened.

"After I watched the video, I had to lie down for a while," she said. "I'm so glad I didn't know about it when he was up there. The roof is not very strong, and the bear is very heavy."

Polar bears have been spotted in several coastal Newfoundland and Labrador communities this spring, prompting regular warnings from officials to be careful. Bears have been reported on Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula -- St. Anthony sits on the region's northeast tip -- and on Fogo Island, which is just off the northern coast of central Newfoundland.

The animals are from the Davis Strait population, provincial wildlife officials said in an email Tuesday, and they're likely heading back north after a winter of feasting on seals out on the sea ice. The bear sightings this year are perfectly normal, they added, noting they receive 30 to 60 reports of polar bear sightings a year.

Stevens was reading in bed Sunday when her dog started barking and scrambling around the house at about 6:30 p.m. She went to the front door thinking someone had knocked.

"I looked up to the left, and I was looking at a polar bear right in the face," she said. "I didn't have the door open very long, believe me." Her neighbour came over the next day with footage from his security camera, showing the bear stepping easily onto the roof above her front porch from a snowbank. The animal sniffed and clomped about for almost a minute before climbing back down.

"When I got in bed, I had a job to get to sleep," Stevens said. "It was quite an adventure."

Two bears have wandered onto Fogo Island this spring, the community's mayor said in an interview Tuesday. "We haven't had that much sea ice in the last few years, but this year apparently the ice is really heavy and there seems to be a lot of seals on it," Mayor Andrew Shea said. "I guess they came with the seals."

Wildlife officials tranquilized and caged the second bear last week and shipped it off the island on the ferry, Shea said. The animal was taken up to St. Anthony, where it could head safely back north on the ice.

Jeffrey Keefe figures at least 16 bears have shown up in his southern Labrador community of Black Tickle this spring. He works with the Canadian Rangers as the town's polar bear guard, so he's in charge of getting them out of town and back on the ice.

"If they're eating good and they're in good shape, they're not much of a trouble," Keefe said in an interview Tuesday. "You can bawl out at them loud or tap your hands together, normally you'll startle them and they'll run."

Sometimes, Keefe will have to get a few people together to chase them off with their snowmobiles. He said changing sea ice conditions over the past several years have made their arrival unpredictable, and there weren't any bears the past two years.

"I'm glad they're back this year," he said. "I've always enjoyed driving the polar bears away ... just driving along and watching the polar bear go, and looking at his habits and seeing different things from it."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2022.