A quiet Sunday morning at a family home in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, turned frightening when an adult black bear attacked a three-year-old girl. The child was playing on the family’s backyard deck when the bear approached and attacked her. A parent nearby quickly stepped in and managed to chase the animal away. Emergency crews responded, and the girl was airlifted to BC Children’s Hospital for treatment.
Authorities said her injuries were not life-threatening. The incident then took another turn when police encountered an aggressive bear nearby, but later testing showed that it was not the animal responsible for attacking the child.
A black bear attacks the child on her backyard deck
The attack happened on the morning of Sunday, August 9, at a home in Maple Ridge, a city east of Vancouver. The three-year-old girl was outside on her family’s backyard deck when an adult black bear appeared. The situation changed quickly as the bear attacked the child. A parent was close enough to respond and managed to drive the animal away from the girl. Police and conservation officials were then called to the area as emergency crews focused on helping the injured child.
The girl needed hospital care after the encounter. She was airlifted to BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, where she received treatment. Officials described her injuries as non-life-threatening, although later reports said she underwent surgery. Authorities did not immediately release a full public account of her injuries. The focus remained on her medical care and the search for the bear. The attack was especially concerning because it happened directly outside a family home rather than on a remote hiking trail or deep inside a forest.
The bear returns after the initial attack
The danger did not appear to end when the parent chased the bear away. Police said the animal returned to the residence and the surrounding area several times. Its repeated interest in the location worried responding officers. Authorities were dealing with a bear that had already attacked a child and appeared unwilling to leave the immediate area. That behavior led police to take further action while trying to protect people living nearby.
Officers later encountered a black bear displaying aggressive behavior and fired at the animal. The bear was struck but initially escaped into a wooded area. Authorities continued searching while warning people nearby to remain careful. A black bear was later found dead, creating hope that the immediate danger had ended. However, investigators still needed to determine whether that animal was actually the same bear involved in the attack on the young girl.
Testing shows police killed a different bear
A necropsy produced an unexpected result. The black bear killed after the attack was not the animal that had injured the three-year-old girl. Officials confirmed that the evidence did not match the offending bear. This meant the bear involved in the attack was still somewhere in the area. The discovery changed the situation from what could have been a closed investigation into an active search for another animal.
Authorities continued asking the public to avoid the search area while conservation officers looked for the correct bear. A predator attack team from the British Columbia Conservation Officer Service became involved. These specialists investigate serious encounters between people and large wild animals. Their work can include examining evidence from the scene and studying animal behavior to determine what happened. In this case, correctly identifying the bear was especially important because another animal had already been killed while the actual offending bear remained unaccounted for.
Maple Ridge residents live close to bear habitat
Black bears are a familiar part of life around Maple Ridge because developed neighborhoods sit close to forests and other wildlife habitats. Bears can move between natural areas and places where people live, especially when food is available. Garbage, ripe fruit, pet food, compost, and other items can attract bears into neighborhoods. Once a bear begins finding easy food around homes, repeated visits can create problems for both residents and the animal.
Maple Ridge has rules designed to reduce these attractants. Residents must manage garbage carefully and avoid leaving items outside at times when they can easily attract wildlife. The city also requires people to manage ripe fruit and protect beehives from bears. These rules are meant to reduce the chance that bears will begin treating residential properties as reliable places to find food. Violations can lead to fines, showing how seriously the city treats the connection between human food sources and wildlife conflicts.
British Columbia has a large black bear population
British Columbia has long been estimated to contain between 120,000 and 160,000 black bears. That figure is widely repeated, but it comes with an important limitation. The estimate is based on older provincial information rather than a recent complete count of every part of British Columbia. Provincial conservation information still refers to the range while noting the age of the underlying estimates and the limited amount of broad population inventory work.
That does not mean the province has no information about its bears. Officials collect other forms of data, including reports about conflicts and black bear deaths. British Columbia recorded 13,672 calls involving black bears in 2025. Conservation officers attended 1,116 of those calls. Provincial statistics show that 240 black bears were killed or euthanized through recorded non-hunting causes that year, including 178 euthanized by the Conservation Officer Service. These numbers track human and bear conflicts, but they do not provide a new, complete population count for the province.
Another bear encounter happens the same day
The Maple Ridge attack was not the only serious bear encounter reported in British Columbia that Sunday. Conservation officers also investigated a separate incident involving a grizzly bear and a male hiker near Pemberton. That location is far from the Maple Ridge neighborhood where the young girl was attacked, and officials treated the two events as separate cases.
Investigators determined that the Pemberton incident involved a surprise encounter between the hiker and the grizzly. The man suffered injuries that were described as non-life-threatening. Conservation officials concluded that the grizzly did not present an ongoing threat to other people using the backcountry, so they did not plan to search for and kill the animal. Warning signs were being placed in the area to alert other visitors.
Featured Image: “American black bear” by Marie Hale is licensed under CC BY 2.0
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